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Retention and production.
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18.—(1) If by law or otherwise a person or public body is required (whether the requirement is in the form of an obligation or consequences flow from the information not being retained or produced in its original form) or permitted to retain for a particular period or produce a document that is in the form of paper or other material on which information may be recorded in written form, then, subject to subsection (2), the person or public body may retain throughout the relevant period or, as the case may be, produce, the document in electronic form, whether as an electronic communication or otherwise.
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(2) A document may be retained throughout the period, or produced, by the person or public body as provided in subsection (1) only—
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(a) if there exists a reliable assurance as to the integrity of the information from the time when it was first generated in its final form as an electronic communication,
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(b) in the case of a document to be produced— if the information is capable of being displayed in intelligible form to the person or public body to whom it is to be produced,
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(c) in the case of a document to be retained— if, at the time of the generation of the final electronic form of the document, it was reasonable to expect that the information contained in the electronic form of the document would be readily accessible so as to be useable for subsequent reference,
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(d) where the document is required or permitted to be retained for or produced to a public body or for or to a person acting on behalf of a public body, and the public body consents to the document being retained or produced in electronic form, whether as an electronic communication or otherwise, but requires that the electronic form of the document be retained or produced in accordance with particular information technology and procedural requirements— if the public body's requirements have been met and those requirements have been made public and are objective, transparent, proportionate and non-discriminatory, and
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(e) where the document is required or permitted to be retained for or produced to a person who is neither a public body nor acting on behalf of a public body— if the person for or to whom the document is required or permitted to be retained or produced consents to it being retained or produced in that form.
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(3) Subsections (1) and (2) are without prejudice to any other law requiring or permitting documents in the form of paper or other material to be retained or produced—
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(a) in accordance with particular information technology and procedural requirements,
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(b) on a particular kind of data storage device, or
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(c) by means of a particular kind of electronic communication.
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(4) For the purposes of subsections (1) and (2)—
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(a) the criteria for assessing integrity is whether the information has remained complete and unaltered, apart from the addition of any endorsement or change which arises in the normal course of generating, communicating, processing, sending, receiving, recording, storing or displaying, and
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(b) the standard of reliability shall be assessed in the light of the purpose for which the information was generated and the circumstances in which it was generated.
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