What are vital records?

Vital records are the records an organization absolutely needs to continue or resume operations after an emergency, and to protect the legal and financial rights of the organization and the people it serves. They are a small, critical subset of all records — often just 1–5% of total holdings.

Two categories

Vital records generally fall into two types:

• Emergency operating records — those needed to continue or resume essential functions during and immediately after a disruption. Examples include current contracts and leases, delegations of authority, emergency and continuity plans, critical operational data, and key system documentation.
• Rights-and-interests records — those needed to protect legal and financial rights. Examples include incorporation and ownership documents, personnel and benefits records, accounts receivable, and insurance records.

A record being important does not make it vital. The test is whether the organization could function, or protect critical rights, without that record in the immediate aftermath of an emergency.

How they are protected

A vital records program identifies these records in advance and protects them, most often by duplication and dispersal — keeping copies off-site or in a geographically separate location so that a single fire, flood, or cyber incident cannot destroy the only copy. Because vital records change over time, the program must refresh the protected copies on a regular cycle; an out-of-date duplicate offers little protection.

This work is a core part of continuity of operations (COOP) and disaster-recovery planning, and it is distinct from — though related to — the longer-term concern of preserving records of enduring historical value. Identifying vital records is usually done in cooperation with the business units that own the underlying functions, since they best understand what they could not operate without. See the vital records, archives and preservation hub for more.