text foi – National Freedom of Information Coalition

Cellphone companies say they don’t save text messages

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From News-Gazette.com: City Attorney Fred Stavins said that, even if they are public records, deleted text messages are impossible to recover, and the city's legal department provided The News-Gazette with its research to prove it.

In December 2012, city officials called around to various cellphone providers to determine how long those records are retained in the cell company's files.

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AT&T: No records are kept of customers' text messages — that data can only be accessed on a customer's phone.

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OMG: Text messages sent by D.C. officials sneak By FOI laws

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From DCist:

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Jacksonville (Fla.) plans to start saving text messages

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From The Financial News and Daily Record:

The City Ethics Commission Subcommittee on Transparency and Open Government met Monday to discuss how to capture and preserve text messages.

"The first area of concern was whether or not text messages, which are public record if they are discussing City business on either City or personal phones, are being kept," said James Young, a member of the City Ethics Commission.

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NFOIC’s FOI Friday for March 30, 2012

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A few open government and FOIA news items selected from many of interest that we might or might not have drawn attention to earlier.

Text messages enter public-records debate

Those supposedly private messages that public officials dash off on their government cellphones to friends and colleagues aren't necessarily private after all.

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Read More… from NFOIC’s FOI Friday for March 30, 2012