(1) In this section, “records” of an institution means and includes all books of account and other books of every kind, journals, ledgers, statements, instruments, documents, files, messages, writings of every kind, and other internal or other data and other information of every description, made or received by an institution in the regular course of its business or otherwise, regardless of the mode in which it is recorded.

(2) Institutions need not preserve or retain any of their records or copies thereof for a period longer than is expressly required by an applicable statute or rule or regulation of this state or the United States which identifies, either specifically or by type or category, the relevant records or copies thereof or, if there is no such statute or rule or regulation which specifies a retention period applicable to the records or copies thereof, for a period longer than 5 years. An institution may destroy any of its records or copies thereof after the expiration of the retention period determined as provided in this subsection.

(3) No liability shall accrue against any institution because of the destruction of any of its records or copies thereof as permitted by subsection (2), and in any judicial or other action or proceeding in which any such records or copies thereof may be called in question or be demanded of the institution or any officer or employee thereof, a showing that such records or copies thereof have been destroyed in accordance with the provisions of subsection (2) is a sufficient excuse for the failure to produce them.

(4) Any institution may at any time make, or cause to be made, a copy or copies of any or all of its records, and any such copy duly certified, authenticated, or identified by a responsible officer or agent of the institution under whose supervision the records or copies are kept shall, in all cases and in all courts and places, be admitted and received as evidence with a like force and effect as the original record, whether or not the original is in existence.

(5) The original of any record of an institution includes the data or other information comprising a record stored or transmitted in or by means of any electronic, computerized, mechanized, or other information storage or retrieval or transmission system or device which can upon request generate, regenerate, or transmit the precise data or other information comprising the record; and an original also includes the visible data or other information so generated, regenerated, or transmitted if it is legible or can be made legible by enlargement or other process.

(6) Copies of records of an institution, heretofore or hereafter made, include duplicates or counterparts of an original produced from the same impression or process as the original by carbon or other chemical or substance or process; negative and positive film and prints of an original or copy and reproductions and facsimiles of an original or copy, whether or not the same size, produced by photographic, microphotographic, photostatic, xerographic, electronic, computerized, or mechanized process, or by any other process, and enlargements and reductions thereof; and the data or other information comprising a record stored or transmitted as provided in subsection (5), and the visible data or other information generated or regenerated or transmitted by such information storage or retrieval or transmission system or device, if it is legible or can be made legible by enlargement or other process.

History.—s. 57, ch. 92-303.