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|  Integrated Community Solutions
Integrated Community Solutions, Inc. (ICS) is a values driven,
non-profit corporation committed to providing human services that
benefit the low to moderate income and disabled populations. We aim
at achieving our mission by identifying client needs, providing
assistance through a variety of programs, and connecting clients to
other community resources to meet those needs. Together with
various government agencies, ICS manages those programs to serve
individuals and families throughout Brown County, Wisconsin. It is
this privatization of government programs that allows for
efficiency and cost effectiveness.
 Port of Green Bay
The Port of Green Bay is a vital part of our local economy, our history
and our lives. It plays an important role in the transportation of
goods and commodities that are critical to the economic health of the
region. The Port of Green Bay receives and/or sends commodities as far
south as Sheboygan, Wisconsin, west to Wausau, Wisconsin, and north into
the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Waterborne transportation provides an
efficient and environmentally-friendly mode of transportation.
 Wisconsin Water WellThis website was created to provide professionals and homeowners a resource to all aspects of Wisconsin's ground water.
Wisconsin's ground water is an essential and vital natural resource that every person in the state needs to live.
Working together we can protect our most precious resource.
" When the well's dry, we know the worth of water." - Benjamin Franklin, (1706-1790)
Romo Durable Graphics
Romo Durable Graphics produces
attractive and cost-effective options to decorate products and
facilities. We believe graphics are more than something pretty to
look at - they have function. Producing decorations that make a
difference.
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August's Employee Pet of the Month
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Community : Pepsi Refresh Project
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Vote to give this idea 50K : Provide Affordable Housing for our Homeless Population
Let's help Integrated Community Solutions, Inc. meet their goals by voting for their idea! Vote Today!
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| Featured Article | |
The thicket of federal, state, and industry-specific regulations is enormously complex. Most organizations fail to comply with some rules, often due to the policy conflicts. The best way for companies to navigate the maze and avoid penalties is to show a "best effort" -- a serious, honest attempt to ensure that records are properly and securely archived in accordance with the best possible understanding of regulations.
For IT, compliance begins with determining the systems and processes necessary to archive the entire gamut of pertinent data -- including email, IMs, files from office suites, scans of documents, photos, faxes, audio files, videos, log files, and more.
These efforts go beyond merely storing information. Data must be archived securiely, in an auditable framework, and managed over its lifetime, which can range from a few months to 20 years or more, depending on the type and regulations that apply. Then it must be deleted securely when no longer required.
The liability of lax compliance can be enormous. No company wants to lose a lawsuit because it was unable to respond to legal discovery requirements or face enormous fines because it failed to observe records-keeping or security rules. Both management and IT need to be aware of the archiving requirements for their industry. And IT needs an end-to-end stategy to meet the archiving challenge.
Key compliance regulations and what they mandate Compliance isn't easy. In some instances, regulatory requirements archiving overlap or even conflict with each other. For example, one regulation may require that patient records be archived for seven years and then securely disposed of, while another may require that records be held for the lifetime of a patient.
No wonder many companies lean toward "saving everything" by default. The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure require that companies maintain and produce on demand not only paper but any and all electronically stored information during the discovery phase of litigation. Failing to maintain archives of emails and other files may result not only in large financial penalties, but also expose IT staff to fines or jail time.
To minimize risk, management and IT need to collaborate and create a framework that can ensure proper procedures are followed and can adapt as regulations change. Here's a quick review of where several of the most prominent regulations stand today.
Sarbanes-Oxley and other financial regulations The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 is a federal law enacted in the wake of several major corporate accounting scandals, notably the Enron fiasco. Sarbanes-Oxley sets new or enhanced standards for accounting firms, public companies, and corporate management. The infamous Sarbanes-Oxley Section 802, which permits to records retention, has the greatest applicability to archiving.
Section 802 requires public companies and their accountants to maintain all audit or review documents, including electronic records, for five years from the end of the fiscal period in which the audit or review was concluded. Because documents must be readable for the five-year period, it's also essential to ensure that document readers or other applications continue to be supported for the full cycle.
Typically, companies are expected to show documented policies on retention and protection of data as well ad destruction at the end of the retention period and audit trails. Companies may also need to defend the quality of their system to show that necessary steps were taken to ensure necessary security, fault tolerance, and controls.
Other financial regulations and organizations that deal with archiving policies include the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. Each deals with various parts of a company's financial records, stock trading, banking, and investments, with different requirements for disclosure, records retention, and audits.
HIPAA and health records The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)
requires, among many other things, that employee health records (and
customer health records, if a company provides health services) be
retained securely for a prescribed period and then disposed of securely. Retention periods vary from two years to seven, depending on state
as well as federal requirements and the types of records; for example,
records of minors may need to be retained until the minors are 21. HIPAA
requires that companies be able to demonstrate that records are secure
-- and that they should be capable of determining whether records have
been accessed in the event of a data leak. The new Hitech Act, part of the 2009 economic stimulus package passed by Congress, offers incentives to use electronic health records (EHR)
and will eventually reduce Medicare payments to doctors and physicians
groups that don't use EHR. This means that in the long term, virtually
all health organizations will be handling vast amounts of electronic
data and will need to archive and protect that data. PCI compliance and archiving The Payment Card Industry archiving requirements
revolve around security rather than retention periods -- data must be
stored securely, in encrypted form. This includes data stored in online
databases, data stored on tape or other removable media, as well as data
transmitted over the Internet. Database access logs and other records
of transactions must be stored separately to enable tracking and
auditing of data access. In addition to requiring encryption and other security measures,
some states require notification of data breaches to all potentially
affected customers, making it essential to track data breaches and to be
able to identify all customer records contained in specific archives,
tape backups, or other systems that could be accessed or lost. Learn more about Archiving, Backup and Compliance at our Barracuda Networks Seminar on August 25.
Source: http://www.pcworld.com/article/20164/Build_Archiving_Systems_to_Meet_Compliance_Demands.html?tk=rss_news
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