Government records often require security protocols that standard commercial warehouses simply cannot support. Iron Mountain operates a highly specialized, nationwide network of secure records centers engineered to meet stringent public sector requirements:

• NARA-Compliant Facilities: We offer strategically located facilities that meet NARA (National Archives and Records Administration) 36 CFR Part 1234 standards for physical security, fire safety, and environmental controls.
• Classified Storage: For highly sensitive defense and intelligence assets, we provide specialized facilities with cleared personnel, strict access controls, and infrastructure built to secure classified physical media.
• Environmental & Disaster Mitigation: Our facilities feature advanced climate zoning, seismic bracing, and dry-pipe fire suppression systems to protect irreplaceable historical and civic archives from natural disasters.

Public sector agencies cannot simply throw away old files. To destroy government records, you must follow strict, legally binding retention schedules.

Our Smart Records Cleanup suite takes the risk and guesswork out of backfile reduction:

• We locate the records that matter through inventory and analysis of your legacy boxes, mapping them against your official retention schedules.
• Using Smart Sort, we group records by destruction eligibility dates, identifying exactly what must be retained, what should be digitized, and what can be safely destroyed.
• Records that have reached retention and are disposition-eligible are destroyed through secure, witnessed shredding that complies with federal standards and issued a Certificate of Destruction for your compliance audit trail.

As public sector workforces shift from in-office to remote and back to hybrid models, physical-only record archives can paralyze operations. Further, when an urgent FOIA or audit request comes in, agencies cannot afford to wait days for physical delivery of offsite records.

Iron Mountain bridges the accessibility gap with our 24-hour Scan-on-Demand pipeline:

Rapid Digital Delivery: If an authorized government employee needs a physical file stored in our secure facilities, they request it via our web portal. Our team retrieves the document, scans it, and uploads a secure digital copy in under 24 hours.

CJIS & FedRAMP Secure Transmission: Digital files are not sent over unsecure email. Instead, they are routed through our highly secure, encrypted digital platforms that meet CJIS and FedRAMP standards.

Seamless Integration: The digitized document is immediately ready to be fed into your agency's active digital workflows, databases, or case management systems.

Storing and managing legacy paper archives is an expensive drain on agency resources. Iron Mountain helps achieve defensible disposition through Smart Suite technology that rapidly sorts and classifies legacy files, allowing agencies to securely shred expired records. Our NARA-compliant facilities provide climate controlled secure storage, guaranteed chain of custody, and 24-hour record access via our Iron Mountain Connect portal.

Under federal COOP mandates and state emergency preparedness guidelines, agencies must ensure that vital records like land deeds, historical charters, active court dockets, and emergency response plans, remain safe and accessible during natural disasters or facility crises. Storing critical paper archives in standard municipal basements or on-premise file rooms leaves agencies exposed to severe loss from flooding, fire, and power disruption.

Iron Mountain strengthens agency resilience and disaster recovery through:

• Hardened, Climate-Controlled Vaulting in our specialized facilities, including "The Underground" in Boyers, PA, offer subterranean, climate-zoned environments built to withstand extreme weather, floods, and seismic events while preventing media degradation.
• Vital Records Priority Protocol: In the event of a COOP activation, our expedited Scan-on-Demand service ensures designated critical records are scanned and securely transmitted digitally within hours to alternate agency work sites.
• Auditable Chain of Custody and Recovery: If primary facilities are compromised, our disaster response teams manage emergency evacuation, freeze-drying, and restoration of water-damaged paper records, preserving the evidentiary value of government assets.

Offsite physical storage can raise concerns among government leaders about access delays for remote staff or missed statutory deadlines for Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and subpoena requests. Scan-on-Demand turns physical storage into an active, hybrid digital pipeline.

Instead of paying to digitize millions of legacy pages upfront, agencies store physical boxes securely and convert files to digital assets only when needed.

• Targeted "Digitize-as-You-Go" drastically reduces initial modernization costs by storing paper archives in cost-effective physical facilities and digitizing documents on an as-needed basis.
• Rapid SLA delivery deadlines ensure that when an urgent record is requested, facility teams locate the physical box, scan the document, and deliver a high-resolution digital copy - typically within hours - helping staff meet strict legal, audit, and FOIA response windows.