To use the PEC in case of litigation, it must be kept according to what is established by the Code of Digital Administration and by the Civil Code
As provided by the Code of Digital Administration already in its original formulation in 2005 (the first CAD was issued with D. Lgs. 82 2005), the Certified E-Mail is considered to all intents and purposes an electronic document and, as such, it must be kept according to the provisions of the law.As provided for by the Code of Digital Administration already in its original formulation in 2005 (the first CAD was issued with D. Lgs. 82 of 2005), the Certified Electronic Mail is to be considered to all intents and purposes an electronic document and, as such, must be stored according to the provisions of the law.
A PEC message, in fact, is to be compared to an accounting writing or to any paper mail message or telegram received or sent. This means that companies and freelancers are required to archive correctly also the certified e-mail, otherwise the document will be legally invalid in case the sender (or recipient) wants to use it as evidence in a possible dispute in court. A delicate task, therefore, to be carried out with the utmost care and attention: understanding how to store the PEC can be “complex” if you do not apply yourself sufficiently.
Thanks to Libero PEC Unlimited, the certified mailbox dedicated to freelancers and SMEs, storing certified e-mail will not be a problem. Users have unlimited space and will be able to send and receive as many digital registered letters as they want. Not only that: the archiving system will allow you to always have all your digital correspondence available and find it in a matter of seconds whenever you need it.
PEC storage, what the CAD provides and what the Civil Code provides
If you wonder why to store PEC, you’ll find your answers in the Digital Administration Code (or CAD as it is called) and the Civil Code. As stated in article 43 of the CAD, “Documents in archives, accounting records, correspondence and any act, data or document whose preservation is required by law or regulation, when reproduced on electronic media, are valid and relevant for all legal purposes, if the reproduction and preservation over time are carried out in such a way as to ensure the conformity of the documents to the originals”. This is directly linked to articles 2214 and 2220 of the Civil Code, which provide for the obligatory and regulation-compliant conservation of the company’s accounting records and correspondence for a period of 10 years.
How to conserve PEC for legal purposes
The methods of conservation, on the other hand, are explicit in article 44 of the Digital Administration Code and provide that it is possible to identify with certainty the author of the message; that the document is intact and legible and that it is possible to easily recover documents and information identifying the message. So that the PEC does not lose its legal value, it is necessary to keep the complete receipt of delivery, in which it is possible to find the sent message and the daticert.xml file. These are the necessary elements to comply with the requirements of the already mentioned article 44 of the CAD and to be sure of the legal value of the certified email.