The Public Record Office Victoria (PROV) has updated its guidelines for public servants on managing records related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Issuing the update, PROV said that in response to the pandemic, Victorian public offices were required to create, receive and manage a range of new record types such as those related to contact tracing, vaccinations and other COVID-Safe data.
“To specify minimum retention periods and authorise disposal of COVID-19 related records, PROV has updated their current Retention and Disposal Authorities (RDAs),” the Office said.
“RDAs now updated to cover COVID-19 related records including the RDAs for Service Victoria, Public Health, Local Government, and Common Administrative Functions,” it said.
It said RDAs were PROV standards issued by the Keeper of Public Records and were a legal instrument authorising the disposal of public records.
PROV said the standards set the minimum retention time that different classes of records must be kept and how they were to be disposed of, authorised the destruction of records which were no longer required, and identified records that were to be permanently retained as State archives.
It said the updated RDAs for records of all Victorian public offices covered attendance records to support contact tracing, vaccination status of persons and vaccination certificates.
It said RDAs specific to Department of Health public servants covered communicable disease control (including contact tracing) and COVIDSafe data, while the updated disposal coverage for records of Service Victoria related to QR code generation to support contact tracing.
The Office also issued updates for public hospitals, health services administering vaccines and local government related to vaccines administered to children and adults as well as vaccination program administration records.
Further information on current RDAs can be accessed at this PS News link.
