The IRS Had a Contract With an Email Backup Company

The Internal Revenue Service
(IRS) said it can’t provide emails sent between 2009 and 2011 that
were requested by congressional investigators because of hard drive
crashes.

The agency said that emails stored on dead drives were lost
forever because its email backup tapes were recycled every six
months, and employees were responsible for keeping their own
long-term archives. 

The IRS had a contract with email backup service vendor Sonasoft
starting in 2005,
according to FedSpending.org, which lists the contract as being
for “automatic data processing services.” Sonasoft’s motto is
“email archiving done right,” and the company lists the IRS as a
customer.

In 2009, Sonasoft even sent out a
Tweet advertising its work for the IRS. 

The exact details of the service that Sonasoft provided to the
IRS aren’t clear. But the company advertises its
email archiving solution as “ideal for small and medium businesses,
government agencies, school districts, nonprofit organizations
using Microsoft’s Exchange Server.” And a document posted on
its website describing its services says that its system “archives
all email content and so reduces the risk of
non-compliance with legal, regulatory and other obligations to
preserve critical business content.” 

Sonasoft connection and IRS contract details first noted
on Morgenr’s Twitter account.