FOI 8703

1. Do you make use of any Instant Messaging clients/systems, such as group clients like Yammer, Slack, Whatsapp groups, Facebook or Twitter message groups or user-to-user Google Chat type services etc?

Yes – we use:

Yammer

Skype for business

Slack

2. If yes, please provide a list with details of each with its use, membership (to the extent it is disclosable, such as categories) and service as well as any 'service tier' information held and cost where applicable. This would include personal chat groups used in a way that would bring them into scope of the Freedom of Information Act.

Yammer as part of our staff intranet, currently has 2,000 members – enterprise licence

Skype for business – used as an internal communications tool and is provided within our current Microsoft tenancy. On-premise deployment to c.250 users on a pilot basis. Peer- to-peer chat only. Persistent chat not deployed.

Slack - used within our Digital Services team as part of the LocalGovDigital practitioner network – free tier

3. For each of the above, are you the data controller? Is it a shared service (e.g. use of something like the Government Digital Service cross-govt slack https://ukgovernmentdigital.slack.com/ which has local government members, or similar) or your own system?

Yammer – we are the data controller

Slack is a cross-govt channel

Skype for business – we are the data controller

4. Where one of the above is a Slack or similar 'cloud' chatroom with a unique URL, please provide this link.

https://localgovdigital.slack.com/

5. Where one of the above has a specific membership criteria, please provide this.

LocalGovDigital Slack channel is administered by the channel admin (non-LCC) with restricted access to .gov suffixed mail domains and other public sector authorities on an ad-hock basis. 6. For each of the above, how long is information retained for and in what form?

Our Yammer guidelines state that information will be reviewed after 13 months.

Skype for business – used as an instant messaging tool. Information is not retained.

7. For each of the above, please provide copies of any relevant policies or procedures regarding records management, retention or FOI/EIR/DPA compliance.

The retention schedule covering Yammer is in draft.

We have the following policies:

 Data Capture and Storage Policy

 Data Access and Use Policy

 Retention and Disposal Policy

 Information and Data Governance Policy

 Public Access to Data Policy

 Data Protection Policy

 Yammer Guidelines