Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 24 June 2015
260. Deputy Sean Fleming asked the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources 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. [25176/15]
View answerIn accordance with the terms of the Public Service Agreement on the use of shared services my Department currently has the management of its email function outsourced to the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine.
The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine has email filtering in place, which deletes incoming emails that are categorised as being viruses, malware or spam. In cases where there is a doubt over the provenance of an email, the email is quarantined and the intended recipient is notified. They can then request the email administrator to release the email if it is not deemed to be a threat.
Otherwise the Department does not have any processes in place that carry out auto-deletion of emails from our email servers. All email data are backed up in accordance with our backup policy and can be restored to particular points in time if required.
