FIRST Mailing List Policy

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Subscriptions to the mailing lists are managed by the FIRST Secretariat first-sec@first.org. Subscription policy, allowed posters, ownership, classification and retention policy differ per list.

Mailing Lists

Some of the lists are permanent and others are temporary, i.e. created according to the need for a specific period of time. Any FIRST Representative or Committee Chairperson may ask to have a new mailing list created for purposes that correspond to the FIRST Operational Framework and its policies. The request for creating a new mailing list, its charter and all other relevant details must be sent to the FIRST Secretariat at least 14 days before its expected use.

The person making the request for a new list shall be the list owner, and will set — subject to approval by the Board of Directors — the subscription policy, allowed posters, default mail classification and retention policy. These mailing lists may be open for non-FIRST members.

Mailing lists are deleted at the request of the list owner or the Board of Directors.

Posting restrictions

Posting to the permanent lists is restricted to FIRST Members & Staff in most cases, meaning the FIRST Team members, Liaison members, Board of Directors and Board members, the Executive Director, FIRST Secretariat, conference organizer and other parties recognized as FIRST Staff.

Posting policies for temporary lists are determined by the list owner. Messages from unregistered addresses will silently be discarded, as well as spam and messages containing viruses or other malware.

Mail classification

All information shared through this mailing list is by default TLP:AMBER (https://www.first.org/tlp/). The author of the original mail can classify information differently.

Code of Conduct

The FIRST Code of Conduct Policy (https://www.first.org/about/policies/code-of-conduct) must be respected.

Mail retention policy

Mailing lists will be archived, unless the list owner specifies otherwise, and for a period determined by the list owner. This is called the retention policy. Several of the permanent lists have a special retention policy, where the archives are kept for a period of 2-3 years: that means that each year after the Board of Directors elections in the FIRST Annual General Meeting, the archives of only the preceding 2 years of those lists are kept, while the archive of the year before that is discarded.

Every person who sends a message to any of the lists associated with FIRST thereby acknowledges the retention policy for that list. The list archives will be kept by FIRST in a secure location. The Board of Directors has the right to delete any message from any archives at their discretion.

Access to the mail archive

The Board of Directors and the FIRST Secretariat normally have access to all mailing lists, unless it has been agreed to in advance that they will not.

Current FIRST team members or FIRST liaisons can request access to any archive they would normally have access to. They may also submit a request to the FIRST Secretariat requesting access to lists they would NOT normally have access to. This request needs to be approved by the Board of Directors in order for that access to be granted. However: access to the FIRST Board of Directors-list can not be granted.

Intellectual property

Any intellectual property expressed in mails remains the property of the sender.