scope:

Purpose.

Records serve a vital role in documenting the Air Force mission: providing evidence and accountability of the organization, function, policy, and procedures to the public, congress, and the Department of Defense; ensuring important information is available to support effective decision making, thus enhancing readiness and lethality; protecting the legal rights of the Air Force and the public. Records are created and received by military, civilian, and contractor personnel to document official business, serve as memory of the organization, provide a record of past events, and serve as the basis for future actions.

Records management includes planning, controlling, directing, organizing, training, promoting, and additional managerial activities involved with respect to records creation, maintenance, use, and disposition. It involves preserving, setting up safeguards against illegal removal, loss, or destruction of records and promptly and systematically disposing records of temporary value. Records management is a subset of information governance, the policy-based control of information to meet all legal, regulatory, risk, and business demands. Records management is also a part of the information access programs, areas which involve the collection, use, search, protection, accessibility, and disposal of information.

The International Organization for Standardization established standards for records management such as International Organization for Standardization 15489, Information and Documentation - Records Management, April 2016, underlying several areas of National Archives and Records Administration guidance of which the Air Force must comply, Announced by the Secretary of Defense in 2017, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff introduced Information as a new, seventh joint function.