Public offices use a wide variety of equipment and software in creating records of official business. Some of the digital formats are text, images, videos, CAD files, databases and websites. These records have to be managed and be made accessible for as long as they are required, regardless of the file format or the technology used when they were originally created.
Under s14 of the State Records Act 1998, it is the public office’s responsibility to ensure that the information remains able to be produced or made available for the minimum authorised retention period irrespective of changing technology.
One of the strategies to ensure that records remain accessible or usable over a period of time is the use of sustainable file formats. This guidance lists recommended file formats for records creation.