By admin 
The California Office of Emergency Services will soon delete certain emails after 90 days, raising questions about records-keeping and transparency at the state agency that oversees disaster preparedness and coordinates relief efforts for critical incidents like wildfires and earthquakes.
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“As part of our ongoing effort to strengthen information security, promote sound data-management practices, and align with statewide records-management requirements, Cal OES will implement a 90-day email retention policy effective January 4, 2027,” Cal OES Chief Information Officer Michael Crews wrote last week in an email to employees.
Emails will be automatically deleted after the 90-day threshold unless they are moved to a records management system, according to Crews’ directive, such as Microsoft OneDrive. Mailboxes for those with emails subject to legal scrutiny are excluded from the policy, according to Crews’ announcement. Those considered “routine” will be deleted unless an employee believes it should be preserved because it contains a decision or official action.
The new policy appears to leave it up to individual employees to determine whether emails should be preserved — and there isn’t a newly-imposed penalty for employees who don’t comply with guidelines to determine what’s “routine.”
When asked about the new policy, Cal OES didn’t say what sparked the need for the change, but maintained “key records” will be kept.
“For disaster survivors and affected communities, maintaining key records helps ensure that decisions, actions and assistance are documented and available when needed,” Cal OES wrote in a statement.
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Whether an email is considered a “key record,” is up to the department’s staff, potentially opening the door for records people might request to be deleted before they are asked for.
“Once a request (and/or lawsuit) is made … the agency has to preserve the relevant records until that lawsuit is resolved,” said David Loy, legal director of the First Amendment Coalition. “Sometimes that’s luck in the barn if the horse is gone.”
Routine email deletions, such as Cal OES’ policy, is legal, according to Loy.
The California Supreme Court assessed a similar policy in Gilroy, where body camera footage was discarded by city’s police department. The Law Foundation of Silicon Valley in 2019 requested footage of homeless encampment sweeps from 2016 through present. After a legal battle, it received videos from 2018 and 2019. Videos older than that were subject to the city’s one-year retention policy for body camera footage.
In that 2026 case, City of Gilroy v. Superior Court, the body camera footage was subject to a California Public Records Act request and, according to an opinion drafted by Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero, the court determined that law alone doesn’t impose data retention requirements.
A spokesperson for the California Secretary of State’s Office, which generally sets record retention guidelines for the state, said there isn’t a state policy affecting routine emails.
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“It does present transparency concerns,” Loy said.