Electronic mail is primarily a communication system.
E-mail messages may constitute public record material with legally mandated retention requirements, or may be information with no retention value. E-mail messages are public records when they are created or received in the transaction of public business and retained as evidence of official policies, actions, decisions or transactions. E-mail which has valuable informational content may also be a public record. E-mail messages which are public records must be identified, scheduled and retained just like records in other formats. Currently few e-mail systems are designed to categorize and retain information.