OWLdocs is not a simple document repository. It is a Records Management System (RMS) designed for law enforcement, government, and regulated insurance environments, where documents must be governed, audited, retained, and protected throughout their lifecycle.
OWLdocs enforces governance controls at the time of upload and throughout the record lifecycle, ensuring records are created, accessed, and managed in alignment with regulatory, investigative, and evidentiary requirements.
Record Governance at Creation
When the appropriate compliance modules are enabled by an administrator, users uploading files into OWLdocs are required to classify and govern the record immediately. OWLdocs does not rely on post-hoc classification.
Required and supported record metadata is determined by administrative configuration, and may include mandatory enforcement of:
- Record owner
- Department and user access restrictions
- Record type classification
- Retention policy assignment
- Legal hold designation
- Data access rights
- Keywords and indexing metadata
- 28 CFR Part 23 classification
- Juvenile classification, where applicable
Administrative settings control:
- Which compliance fields are visible
- Which fields are mandatory
- Which record types require additional compliance controls
This ensures governance requirements are intentional, consistent, and auditable.
Required and Supported Record Metadata
OWLdocs supports and enforces record-level metadata including:
- Record owner
- Department and user access restrictions
- Record type classification
- Retention policy assignment
- Legal hold designation
- Data access rights
- Keywords and indexing metadata
- 28 CFR Part 23 classification
- Juvenile classification, where applicable
Administrative settings allow organizations to require specific compliance fields to be mandatory, ensuring records are not stored without proper governance.
Access Control and Need-to-Know Enforcement
OWLdocs enforces least-privilege access using multiple layers of control:
- Department-based access restrictions
- User-specific access controls
- Hierarchical access enforcement
- Compliance-driven access rules for sensitive data
- Juvenile and 28 CFR Part 23 handling
Access restrictions are enforced consistently across OWL modules. Records attached to cases, subjects, or other entities respect both OWLdocs-level controls and parent record context.
Retention Management and Lifecycle Controls
OWLdocs includes a dedicated Retention Policies module that governs how long records are retained and what happens to them at the end of their retention period.
Retention Capabilities Include
- Policy-based retention assignment
- Record type–specific retention rules
- Automated archive and delete timelines
- Administrative dashboards to identify records missing retention policies
- Governance controls to enforce retention policy assignment
Retention operates in conjunction with other compliance controls, including legal hold, juvenile rules, and 28 CFR Part 23 requirements.
Legal Hold and Compliance Controls
OWLdocs supports legal hold functionality to preserve records that may be subject to litigation, investigation, or regulatory review.
- Legal holds prevent deletion or disposition of affected records
- Legal hold status is visible at the record level
- Hold activity is audited
- Legal hold operates in conjunction with retention and compliance rules
OWLdocs also provides native support for 28 CFR Part 23 compliance, including review periods, reviewer assignment, notification timing, and documented outcomes.
Juvenile Record Handling
OWLdocs integrates with OWL’s Juvenile Compliance module to support special protections required for juvenile records.
Capabilities include:
- Automatic juvenile identification based on jurisdictional age rules
- Manual override where authorized
- Review periods and notifications
- Juvenile access restrictions
- Juvenile activity history tracking
These controls operate consistently across record access, retention, and auditing.
Audit and Accountability (RMS-Grade)
All OWLdocs activity is subject to OWL’s immutable, permanent audit logging system.
Audit logs record:
- Record creation, access, and deletion
- Record views, not only edits
- Attribute-level changes, including old and new values
- User identity, date, and time of each action
- Module context for every event
- Case-level association where applicable
Audit logs:
- Cannot be edited
- Cannot be deleted
- Are retained permanently
- Support case-level and user-level reconstruction
This ensures OWLdocs records are fully traceable and defensible.
Case-Aware Record Management
OWLdocs integrates tightly with OWL Case Management, in that:
- Records can be attached directly to cases and other parent entities
- Case-level audit views show all document access and activity
- OWLdocs compliance rules can override parent context where required
- Administrators can reconstruct complete case histories, including document access
This makes OWLdocs suitable for investigative and evidentiary use, not just storage.
Designed for Regulated Environments
OWLdocs RMS capabilities are designed to support:
- Law enforcement investigative workflows
- CJIS-aligned access and accountability expectations
- Government record retention and oversight
- Insurance SIU and regulatory audit requirements
- Litigation and internal affairs review
OWLdocs emphasizes defensibility, accountability, and lifecycle governance, not just document storage.
Key Distinction
OWLdocs does not treat files as unmanaged documents.
Each file is treated as a governed record with:
- Mandatory classification
- Enforced access rules
- Retention and compliance controls
- Legal hold capability
- Permanent, immutable audit history
This positions OWLdocs as a true Records Management System (RMS) within the OWL Intelligence Platform.
Administrative Configuration Requirement
OWLdocs provides Records Management System (RMS) capabilities when the appropriate governance and compliance modules are enabled and configured by an administrator.
OWLdocs does not automatically assume regulatory or investigative requirements apply to all organizations. Instead, RMS behavior is intentionally policy-driven and administrator-controlled.
Administrator Responsibilities
To operate OWLdocs as a full RMS, an administrator must explicitly enable and configure the required modules within the Administration area of OWL, including but not limited to:
- Data Access Classification and Access Rights
- Retention Policies
- Legal Hold
- 28 CFR Part 23 Compliance
- Juvenile Compliance (where applicable)
- Audit Log access and review permissions
When these modules are enabled, OWLdocs enforces mandatory classification, retention, access control, and audit behaviors across records.
If a module is not enabled:
- The associated compliance controls are not enforced
- Related fields may not appear during upload or record editing
- Governance behavior is limited to the enabled modules only
This design ensures OWLdocs can support commercial, investigative, and regulated deployments without forcing unnecessary controls on customers who do not require them.
Why This Matters
OWLdocs is designed to function as a policy-driven RMS, not a hard-coded compliance system.
This approach:
- Prevents over-enforcement in non-regulated environments
- Allows administrators to align OWLdocs precisely to their legal, regulatory, or investigative obligations
- Provides auditors with clear evidence that governance controls are deliberately enabled and managed
When fully configured by an administrator, OWLdocs operates as a comprehensive Records Management System with enforced access control, retention, legal hold, compliance classification, and permanent auditability.