City of Venice employees are getting ready for a change in their text message archiving policy as it pertains to city-owned devices. The city has contracted with a company called Smarsh, which will archive every text sent and received on city-owned, government phones. Even if a city employee deletes a message from their phone, the message is still archived by both the cell phone carrier and by Smarsh. The process came up after a Sarasota attorney filed a large public records request, asking for every email, call record, and text received or sent. The cost? $25,000 in initial setup fees, then another $8,000 per year.
