• The obligations of employers and service agents to make records available expeditiously to DOT representatives apply regardless of how the records are maintained.

 

• All records must be easily and quickly accessible, legible, and formatted and stored in a well-organized and orderly way.

 

• If electronic records do not meet these criteria, then the employer or service agent must convert them to printed documentation in a rapid and readily auditable way.

• Laboratories, employers and other parties required to retain specimens and records of tests should retain blind specimens and records of blind specimen tests in exactly the same way and for the same periods of time as they do actual employee specimens and test records.

 

• For example, an employer would keep a record of a blind positive test for five years and a blind negative test for two years.

 

• Laboratories would keep blind specimens for negatives in accordance with their SOPs and non-negatives for one year.