Custom app development for archive records from the field
The new Archives Act requires digital information to be managed as accessible from the point of creation. That word "creation" is the difficult part. A photo of a tilted kerb, a text message about an enforcement decision, a note on a tablet: this is government information, and it arises on the street, on a phone that belongs to nobody.
What changes in 2027
The new Archives Act was adopted by the Dutch Senate in May 2026 and takes effect on 1 January 2027. The transfer period drops from twenty years to ten, so public bodies will hand over records worth permanent preservation to an archive service sooner. The shorter period applies to records created or received after the Act takes effect; what already exists remains under the old period.
More important in day-to-day practice is the requirement that digital material be managed in an accessible way from the moment it is created, so that it is not lost during a system change or through outdated technology. The framework for this is DUTO, which describes what durably accessible government information involves. The Act also requires the appointment of an archivist.
The unspoken challenge lies in the word "created". For a decision recorded in a case management system, this is already taken care of. For the photo a supervisor takes, the report of a conversation he types up in the car, and the message he receives from a resident, it is not, even though these are equally government information.
What happens to that information afterwards is a separate challenge: selection, metadata, formats and the transfer that moves from twenty to ten years from 2027. See software for durable accessibility and DUTO.
How we build this
The field observation is the unit here. If it arises immediately with the context that makes it findable, then durable accessibility is not a clean-up project after the fact.
Photos, reports, measurements, messages from residents. For most organisations there is more of this than expected, and it is spread across personal devices.
Which case, object or decision it relates to. Without that link, a photo is a file with no meaning five years on.
What must be readable in ten years should not depend on the app used to create it. That is precisely what the Act means by durable accessibility.
The app is the point of creation, not the storage location. What has been recorded moves on to the system where it belongs.
What the app does in practice
The app records with the context that will be needed later. Which components you need depends on the work your people do out in the field.
Images with time, place and case
A photo with only a timestamp becomes unusable over the years. When we create it, we link the case, object or location it concerns.
Recording observations in the field
Findings, conversation reports or measurements, with fixed fields where possible. This makes them searchable later rather than remaining free text.
Metadata the Act requires
Who recorded it, when, about what, and in what capacity. This is what durable accessibility means in practice, and what cannot be added afterwards.
Fully offline operation
On the street, in a cellar or on an industrial estate. Recording continues with the actual time and then synchronises.
Retention period from the start
At the point of creation it is already determined how long something must be kept and whether it is worth permanent preservation. Assigning a retention period to ten thousand files afterwards is the project you want to avoid.
Passing it on to your case system
The app doesn't store anything itself; what is recorded goes via integrations to your case or records management system, for example via the ZGW APIs.
Who we build for
The work your people do in the field determines what is created. Four situations.
Supervision and enforcement
Observations, photos and conversations that later underpin a decision. If these are not attached to the case, the decision cannot be justified years later.
Public space management
Reports, inspections and repair work on objects. The concern is volume and whether something can still be found in ten years, linked to the correct object.
Social domain and neighbourhood teams
Conversation reports that are both a case file and an archival record, with a sensitivity that limits retention rather than extending it.
Projects with external parties
Contractors and advisers who supply information that becomes archival material for you. The question is when that information becomes yours and who manages it from then on.
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The app is the point of origin, not a storage facility. What it captures moves on to the system that manages it, in a format that does not depend on the app.
Why Appfront
Accessible from the point of creation is a design question
We add context at the moment of capture. Adding metadata to a folder of photos afterwards is the clean-up project the law is specifically trying to prevent.
The retention period belongs at the start, not the end
We decide at creation what must happen to a document. That saves effort at transfer, which now takes place ten years earlier than you are used to.
Keeping things longer is not always better
What must be kept permanently and what must be destroyed are two sides of the same selection. We build both, not just the first.
The app does not store anything itself
What the app captures moves on to your case management system or e-depot. An app acting as an archive is exactly the system dependency the law seeks to avoid.
Security and privacy
Information gathered in the field is temporarily held on a device that goes out on the street with you, and in supervision and enforcement it often concerns identifiable people and their homes. We limit offline storage to the day's cases, tie permissions to the user rather than the device, and make sure a lost device can be disconnected remotely.
There is also a tension that grows with the new law. Government information that must be kept permanently eventually becomes public, and transfer now takes place ten years earlier than before. What an inspector records today about a resident can therefore reach an archive service sooner than most people expect. That makes the selection at the front end weigh more heavily: what is archival, what is working material, and what should never have been included. We build that choice in at the point of creation rather than pushing it ten years ahead. How we handle security ourselves is set out in our information security policy; reports from outside come in through our vulnerability disclosure policy.
Frequently asked questions about the Archiving Act in the field
On 1 January 2027; the Senate adopted the Act in May 2026. The shortened ten-year transfer period applies to records created or received after it takes effect. Material that already exists remains under the old twenty-year period, so you will have to deal with both.
If it was taken in the course of your duties, usually yes. That is exactly where organisations are caught out: the material sits on personal devices and in group chats, while it falls under the Act. Where the line falls is for your archivist to determine; what we build is the place where it ends up properly.
That information remains findable, readable and interpretable, even after a system change. In the field it mainly means context: which case it belongs to, who recorded it and when. Without that data, a file ten years from now cannot be interpreted, however well it has been preserved.
No. The app is the point of origin and does not store records itself; see e-depot software for the storage facility. Using an app as the archive would be exactly the system dependency the law aims to avoid.
The new law requires you to designate an archivist to oversee information management. How you fill that role depends on your size and whether you work with an archive service. It is an organisational question; as far as we are concerned, that person determines what must be recorded in the field, and we build it.
This is the most difficult category, because it arrives through channels nobody regards as an archive. What works is offering a single, integrated entry point that is easier for the employee than a messaging app. Anything that takes more effort than the existing channel gets bypassed.
Yes, that is the starting point. Recording happens locally with the actual time and synchronises as soon as there is a connection. On the street, in cellars and on industrial estates, that is the normal situation.
That depends on the type of work, how much metadata you want to record and which case system it needs to connect to. Recording with case linking and context is usually quick to put to use; the integration and selection rules take more time. We give a reasoned estimate after the discovery phase.
Do you know what is being created in the field right now?
Ask an inspector how many photos from last week are on their own phone and how many of those are attached to a case. That gap is what needs to be resolved by 2027. We build this as a standalone app and as part of a broader custom app development or custom software development project.