Information Management Journal articles from November 2005

Information Management Journal archives from November 2005

Armed with knowledge, the future isn't all that unpredictable.(IN FOCUS: A Message from the Editors)
November 1, 2005... Wouldn't it be wonderful if accurately predicting the future were as simple as gazing into a crystal ball? We could determine exactly what technology to invest in, and we could predict the outcome of business decisions as well as which natural...

Electronic health records could save $81 billion.(UP FRONT: News, Trends & Analysis)
November 1, 2005... According to a recent study published in Health Affairs journal, a comprehensive electronic health records system could save the United States $81 billion in healthcare costs each year and improve healthcare quality. But today, only about...

NARA taps Lockheed for archives project.(UP FRONT: News, Trends & Analysis)
November 1, 2005... The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has awarded a $308 million contract to Lockheed Martin Corp. to build the Electronic Records Archives (ERA) program. The program is needed to store and maintain the billions of...

Dutch will track kids with electronic files.(UP FRONT: News, Trends & Analysis)
November 1, 2005... Beginning January 1, 2007, all Dutch citizens will be tracked from cradle to grave in a single database that includes medical, education, family, and police records, according to the health ministry. Currently, all Dutch births are...

Katrina wreaks havoc on records ... lost records challenge doctors.(UP FRONT: News, Trends & Analysis)
November 1, 2005... Hurricane Katrina victims lost everything, including their homes, insurance, and medical records. Without medical records, doctors were hard pressed to treat people who needed help but whose conditions and medications were unknown. The...

ID fraud increases 13 percent in UK.(UP FRONT: News, Trends & Analysis)
November 1, 2005... Identity fraud has risen in the UK by 13 percent with almost 40,000 cases recorded in the first half of 2005, according to new figures from fraud prevention service CIFAS. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] But while the CIFAS figures represent a...

New York enacts tough data breach law.(UP FRONT: News, Trends & Analysis)
November 1, 2005... New York's new state law will force interstate companies to disclose virtually all data breaches, no matter how small the risk, and sets a precedent for cracking down on companies that do not notify customers of data improprieties. New...

Legal group expects e-filing increase.(UP FRONT: News, Trends & Analysis)(Survey)(Brief article)
November 1, 2005... A National Judicial College (NJC)-backed study--"Judicial Survey: Electronic Filing in U.S. State Trial Courts"--predicts that e-filing will continue to increase in the courts to help reduce ever-growing caseloads. More than 70 percent of...

Markey seeks protection for outsourced data.(UP FRONT: News, Trends & Analysis)
November 1, 2005... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] According to a report by U.S. Rep. Edward Markey's (D-Mass.) staff, global outsourcing of computer services and data processing is expected to grow 26 percent annually, becoming a $31 billion market by 2008. ...

Gartner: security is strategic, not technical.(UP FRONT: News, Trends & Analysis)
November 1, 2005... According to Gartner, companies that allow their IT department to dictate how their organization secures itself are doing themselves no favors. Speaking at this year's Gartner IT Security Summit in London, Jay Heiser, research vice...

Strengthening of Australia's Privacy Act urged.(UP FRONT: News, Trends & Analysis)
November 1, 2005... Despite two high-profile cases that have forced thousands of Australians to replace personal items ranging from credit cards to passports, Attorney General Philip Ruddock said Australia's existing Privacy Act, which carries no criminal...

EU directive promises "limited invasion of privacy".(UP FRONT: News, Trends & Analysis)
November 1, 2005... According to a draft version of its directive on data retention, the European Union will require service providers to retain all communications records for at least six months. The latest version of the directive, made public by the...

Federal agencies aren't protecting privacy, report says.(UP FRONT: News, Trends & Analysis)
November 1, 2005... A recent Government Accountability Office report--"Data Mining: Agencies Have Taken Key Steps to Protect Privacy in Selected Efforts, but Significant Compliance Issues Remain"--found that federal agencies are failing to adequately protect...

NARA issues records center rule.(UP FRONT: News, Trends & Analysis)
November 1, 2005... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) issued a final rule to modify NARA facility standards for records storage facilities that house federal records to * Clarify requirements relating to design...

UK to digitize citizen records.(UP FRONT: News, Trends & Analysis)
November 1, 2005... The United Kingdom's Office of National Statistics (ONS) has signed a contract with Siemens Business Services (SBS) to digitize 250 million birth, death, and marriage records from 1837 to the present. The three-year Digitisation of Vital...

NIST web service tracks technical regulations.(UP FRONT: News, Trends & Analysis)
November 1, 2005... U.S. citizens, industries, and organizations can now review and comment on proposed foreign technical regulations that can affect their businesses and their access to international markets. Notify U.S., a free, web-based e-mail service operated...

Google delays library database.(UP FRONT: News, Trends & Analysis)
November 1, 2005... Google has temporarily halted its program to make searchable, digital copies of the vast contents of three U.S. university libraries after complaints from publishers and copyright holders. Google said it plans to give publishers the chance...

Genetic testing prompts legislation and private policy development.(UP FRONT: News, Trends & Analysis)
November 1, 2005... As Congress considers federal legislation to ensure that information gleaned from genetic testing cannot be used to discriminate in hiring and healthcare coverage decision-making processes, one corporation with a large stake in promoting...

Paper audit trail recommended for electronic voting.(UP FRONT: News, Trends & Analysis)
November 1, 2005... Voting irregularities identified in the 2004 U.S. presidential election have led to a number of legislative proposals this year and a recent recommendation by a U.S. election commission that electronic voting machines produce a paper audit...

Canada to increase Internet surveillance.(UP FRONT: News, Trends & Analysis)
November 1, 2005... The Canadian government has proposed dramatic new Internet surveillance powers and has been criticized for the initiative. Justice Minister Irwin Cotler recently announced the federal government's aggressive plans to establish new...

PCAOB adopts material weaknesses standard.(UP FRONT: News, Trends & Analysis)
November 1, 2005... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) adopted an auditing standard for reporting on whether a previously reported material weakness continues to exist. The standard, PCAOB Auditing Standard No. 4,...

Katrina devastates gulf records: Hurricane Katrina hit records hard. The upside, however, is that she may have convinced those still relying on vulnerable paper records to enter the 21st century.(ON THE EDGE: The Use & Misuse of Information)
November 1, 2005... When Hurricane Katrina crashed into the Gulf Coast, she brought torrential rain, widespread flooding, and unbelievable damage. Towns were wiped off the map, families were separated, and lives were swept away. What Katrina did not batter and...

MBM introduces new paper shredder.(MARKET PLACE: New Products & Industry Announcements)
November 1, 2005... MBM Corporation has released the new Destroy it 2501 mid-size paper shredder. The shredder is available in strip or cross-cut models and features a 10-year warranty on the cutting head. A single, oversized control switch features optical...

Tower releases new version of ECM software.(MARKET PLACE: New Products & Industry Announcements)
November 1, 2005... TOWER Software has released the newest version of TRIM Context, an electronic document and records management system. TRIM Context 6 introduces the benefits of a service orientated architecture and a true zero-footprint web client called ice....

Software helps recover missing passwords.(MARKET PLACE: New Products & Industry Announcements)
November 1, 2005... Passware, Inc. has released Passware Kit 7.3, a comprehensive password recovery suite that protects a company when employees lose or tamper with file passwords. When critical employees unexpectedly leave employment, or forget their passwords,...

Open text introduces content archiving for Microsoft products.(MARKET PLACE: New Products & Industry Announcements)
November 1, 2005... Open Text[TM] Corporation has unveiled a content archiving solution for Microsoft[R] SharePoint[TM] Products and Technologies, giving customers a long-term archive to store documents from SharePoint sites. Livelink ECM[TM]--Document Archiving...

Accutrac adds terrorism module.(MARKET PLACE: New Products & Industry Announcements)
November 1, 2005... Accutrac Software Inc. has launched the Accutrac Terrorist Avoidance Module, a software solution to help organizations identify and prevent the initiation of business transactions with sanctioned parties. Employing this functionality supports...

Visioneer introduces mobile duplex scanner.(MARKET PLACE: New Products & Industry Announcements)
November 1, 2005... Visioneer Inc. has announced the release of Strobe XP 300, a duplex mobile scanner, measuring 2" x 2.5" x 12" and weighing 20 ounces. The Strobe XP 300 scans documents at six seconds per image and has a resolution of 600 x 1200 dpi with 48-bit...

Software aids electronic discovery project management.(MARKET PLACE: New Products & Industry Announcements)
November 1, 2005... Attenex[R] Corp. has released Attenex[R] Patterns[R] 3.0, a software solution for corporations, their law firms, and government agencies involved in litigation, investigations, and regulatory response. The software suite now includes Matter...

Standards: building blocks for a strong RIM program: multinational organizations require records retention programs that are founded on the international records management standard and ensure global coverage.
November 1, 2005... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Because the advent of standards is a relatively recent phenomenon in the records and information management (RIM) profession and most records managers have not operated in standards-driven environments, the...

The new face of enterprise search: bridging structured and unstructured information: new technology has expanded the scope of the search engine, opening the doors for searches beyond the traditional.
November 1, 2005... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Enterprise search allows employees to search and retrieve information needed to accomplish professional activities in a manner compliant with their enterprise's information sharing and access control policy. Such...

Legal 101 for RIM professionals: understanding the basics will guide RIM professionals in developing policies that adhere to the law and will protect companies in the event of legal action.
November 1, 2005... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] What exactly is "the law" and how does it affect the creation, maintenance, use, and disposition of business records? An understanding of these basics--how the U.S. legal system works; how "the law" by way of...

Streamlining enterprise records management with Lean Six Sigma: process created by manufacturing can be applied to records management with substantial results.(ManagementWise)
November 1, 2005... As corporations toil to manage ever-increasing volumes of enterprise records, growing forces such as risk mitigation, changing legislation, and corporate governance are creating the need to manage information in a timely fashion. For some...

XML marks the future for electronic records: learning about extensible markup language allows RIM professionals an opportunity to determine how electronic records will be stored and searched.(TechTrends)
November 1, 2005... Thanks to extensible markup language (XML)--and its relatives and derivatives--there are powerful new possibilities for electronic records. Records and information management (RIM) professionals need to learn about XML and what it can do for...

Book review: World view, but common problems.
November 1, 2005... TITLE: Networked Communications and Compliance with the Law--A Concise Guide to the Legal Issues AUTHOR: Stephen Mason, Barrister ISBN: 1-85811-356-3 PUBLISHER: xpl law PUBLICATION DATE: 5th Edition January 2005 LENGTH:...

FBI improves recordkeeping processes.(UPFRONT)
November 1, 2005... After a few big-time bungles that included losing documents related to the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing case and mismanaging records about the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) says it has made significant strides...