U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced this month that it will begin disposing of E-Verify Records that are 10 years old and older beginning January 1, 2015. In an effort to minimize security and privacy risks associated with the retention of Personal Identifiable Information (PII), USCIS will begin disposing of E-Verify case records whose last transaction occurred on or before December 31, 2014. Records will be disposed of in accordance with the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) records retention and disposal schedule (N 1-566-08-7).
Employers who wish to maintain a record of cases that are 10 years old and older will need to download and save the new “Historic Records Report”. This report will ONLY BE AVAILABLE from October 1 through December 31, 2014. The report will contain information on each case created on or before December 31, 2004, and there will be no case information if the employer was not using E-Verify at that time.
USCIS will dispose of E-Verify records each year on January 1. Therefore, on January 1, 2016, records created prior to December 31, 2005 will be disposed of and the process will continue in this manner for subsequent years.
It is recommended that employers annotate Forms I-9 with the E-Verify transaction number and employers may find it convenient to maintain the Historic Records Report with the corresponding Forms I-9.
For guidance on downloading the Historic Records Report see the Questions and Answers and Instructions for Downloading.
For more information, please contact Maria del Carmen Ramos at 813.227.2252 or mramos@slk-law.com.