How Do I Get Started?

Where do you have the most digital chaos? Every department, unit, and institute can decide for itself where a digital clean-up would make the most sense. Perhaps your filing system is cluttered and in desperate need of reorganization. Imagine how much happier your colleagues will be when they no longer have to click through ten folders to find the document they need, but only three.

However, there are a few things to bear in mind:

The public sector is subject to different legal requirements for data deletion and retention. Again, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Some types of data, such as job applications, must be deleted after a certain period of time. Others may still be valuable in the future – such as photos documenting special people or events at the university.

Discuss with your team what can be discarded. Maybe there are 2 or 3 copies of certain documents in different folders? Then decide on just one sensible archiving method.

The Legal Department has compiled information on data retention and destruction obligations in its FAQs under the headings ‘Archivierung’ and ‘Aufbewahrung’ (only available in German).