Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 24 June 2015
179. Deputy Sean Fleming asked the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs if his Department uses any system software for the auto deletion of e-mail messages; if so, his Department's guidelines on the use of such a system; and the length of time e-mails are stored before they are auto deleted. [25175/15]
View answerThe ICT infrastructure for my Department is provided and maintained on a shared service basis by the Department of Health which uses industry standard email security devices to assess potential threats in incoming and outgoing mail. A small number of blacklisted spam addresses, confirmed as nuisance or potentially dangerous, are (without notification) not accepted or routed to intended recipients. Other scanned mails are automatically quarantined based upon the their content (for example profane language, virus infection or potential spam) and notifications are issued to the sender and the intended recipient. These may be released, if required, within 10 to 30 days of being quarantined. All internal emails, and external emails that are accepted by the email security devices, are digitally signed, encrypted and written to a mail archive. These remain retrievable even after messages have been manually deleted. In addition, all email servers are backed up on monitored schedules.
