Can an organization be held liable if permanent records are lost to digital obsolescence?

Yes. Losing permanent records to digital obsolescence can expose an organization to real consequences, even though “obsolescence” sounds like an accident rather than misconduct. The key principle is that preservation of permanent records is a legal and stewardship duty, and failing to maintain them in a usable form can be treated much like failing to keep them at all.

Why obsolescence is a liability issue

Permanent records are designated permanent because they have enduring legal, historical, or operational value. A record that survives on a server but can no longer be opened, rendered, or trusted is functionally lost. Liability typically arises in a few ways:

• Statutory and regulatory duties. Many laws and schedules require records to be retained and accessible for fixed periods or permanently. Inaccessibility can be a compliance failure.
• Litigation and spoliation. When records relevant to a legal matter become unreadable, courts may treat that as failure to preserve evidence, with sanctions or adverse inferences.
• Public-access obligations. For government bodies, records subject to access laws (such as FOIA) must remain producible; unreadable formats can frustrate lawful requests.

What “obsolescence” really means here

Obsolescence is usually foreseeable, not unavoidable. File formats, storage media, and software change on predictable timelines. Because the risk is known, organizations are generally expected to plan for it through active digital preservation rather than treating loss as an excusable surprise.

How to reduce the risk

Sound stewardship is the strongest defense:

• Maintain a current inventory of permanent and long-term records and the formats they live in.
• Use open, well-documented, preservation-friendly formats and migrate before tools disappear.
• Apply integrity checks (such as checksums) and refresh media on a schedule.
• Document your preservation actions so you can demonstrate good-faith stewardship.

The Library of Congress and standards like ISO 15489 frame these as ordinary, expected practices for managing digital records over time.

For deeper guidance on long-term care of digital materials, see the archives and preservation topic hub.

Bottom line

An organization can be held accountable when preventable obsolescence destroys permanent records. The exact exposure depends on jurisdiction, sector, and the records involved, so consult counsel and applicable schedules. But because the loss is usually foreseeable, proactive preservation is both the practical and the defensible course.