Australia Public Service bans paper in boxes.

• Position: GOVERNMENT RECORDS

Anew policy for the Australia Public Service (APS) directs all federal agencies to shift their work practices from paper to entirely digital. The "Digital Continuity 2020 Policy," released by the National Archives of Australia, signals a death knell for recordkeeping methods used for the past century.

The policy will force agencies to manage their information as an asset, ensuring it is created and managed for as long as required, considering business and other needs and risks, the Sydney Morning Herald said.

Agencies will transition to entirely digital work processes, meaning business processes, including authorizations and approvals, will be processed digitally, and that information will be created and managed in digital format.

According to the Herald, agencies will have "interoperable" systems of recordkeeping so their information can be found easily and shared with other agencies.

By June, agencies must have information governance committees established and by the end of 2016 must announce plans for how they will deal with their information. By the end of 2020, the APS expects the transition to the new era of recordkeeping to be complete.

National Archives Director-General David Fricker said information stored by the government needs to outlive technical obsolescence...