Seven kilometre high pile – FCA moves to clarify email deletion plans
The Financial Conduct Authority has acknowledged it hit the headlines last week with criticism of its plans to delete emails held in staff inboxes after a year, and has sought to explain what it is doing and why.
According to the FCA, it currently has over 70 million emails stored in inboxes which, if printed off individually, would create a seven-kilometre-high pile.
Ian Phoenix, director of intelligence and digital at the FCA, stressed the regulator was not deleting evidence, hiding information or reducing transparency.
“There is no change to our policy of what constitutes a record and how long it should be saved for,” he said.
“What we are doing is modernising how we manage our records to make us a more
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