Cameron Kerr
Hello all, I know that in some countries there are legal requirements for how long logs are meant to be held for. Are their such laws like that in NZ, and can anyone point me to any references?
In general, financial records need to be kept for 7 years, in accordance with tax and financial reporting legislation. It's something of a stretch to say web/email/traffic logs etc actually constitute financial records; typically it's only the actual financial documents (invoices etc) that need to be kept, not the raw data that these are based on. (Of course it may still be that one considers particularly sensitive log information to be worth keeping out of prudence, even if one isn't strictly required to.) That said, it's prudent to keep any logs that may be used to resolve a dispute for as long as it's likely that a dispute may arise. It may even be useful to place a limitation (e.g. three months) on disputing accounts in your terms & conditions, and base your log retention around that. -- don