Does Brolly Meet the Requirements of the Public Records Act?

Overview

This is one of the questions we are asked most often, and the honest answer has two parts. Brolly is designed to support public-records and Freedom of Information obligations in Australian jurisdictions. But no software vendor can declare your organisation compliant — that determination sits with your records officer and your records authority. This article sets out what Brolly does, and what remains for your organisation to confirm.

How Brolly Supports Compliance

Social media activity created in the course of official business is generally a public record, and Brolly is built for that reality:

• Every record is a time-stamped, tamper-evident copy of the original activity — the content, its media, its metadata and the moment it was captured. See What Brolly Captures
• Edits keep every version. When a post or comment is changed on the platform, Brolly keeps the earlier version as well as the new one, and the record's inspector lets you step between them. See Viewing a Record
• Deletions stay in the archive. Content removed on the platform is retained in Brolly, marked Deleted, so the record of what was published survives the deletion
• Exports carry full metadata. A record can be produced with the context that records management and FOI processes expect, and every finished export has a SHA-256 checksum so a recipient can verify the file is the one Brolly produced. See Exports
• Records are kept for as long as you need them. Nothing ages out or is overwritten, and disposal only happens on your organisation's instruction. See Retention, Disposal and Legal Hold
• Who did what is logged. Connections, holds, group changes, exports and sign-ins are recorded in the organisation's Activity Log, which can itself be exported

What Your Organisation Still Needs to Confirm

Public-records legislation differs between jurisdictions, and your obligations depend on your organisation's own retention and disposal schedules. We recommend:

• Ask your records officer to map Brolly's capabilities against your specific requirements — which accounts must be archived, how long records must be kept, and how they must be produced
• If anything is unclear, contact your local, state or federal records authority directly. They are the definitive source for what your organisation must do

Tips

If your records team has questions about how Brolly captures, retains or exports records, email support@brolly.com.au — we are glad to provide the detail they need for an assessment.

Connect every official account, including ones that are rarely used. Recordkeeping obligations usually apply to everything your organisation publishes, not just the busy accounts.