[1] The Federal Records Act was created following the recommendations of the Hoover Commission (1947-49).

[1] It implemented one of the reforms proposed by Emmett Leahy in his October 1948 report on Records Management in the United States Government, with the goal of ensuring that all federal departments and agencies had a program for records management.

[1] The Paperwork Reduction Act of 1980, which followed the issuance of the report of the Commission on Federal Paperwork in 1977, introduced information resources management and gave responsibility to the Office of Management and Budget for creating federal information policy standards.

[1] In November 2014, the Presidential and Federal Records Act Amendments of 2014 was signed into law by President Barack Obama.

[3][4] The act also grants the Archivist of the United States the final determination as to what constitutes a Federal record; "authorizes the early transfer of permanent electronic federal and presidential records to the National Archives, while legal custody remains with the agency or the president"; "clarifies the responsibilities of federal government officials when using non-government email systems"; and "empowers the National Archives to safeguard original and classified records from unauthorized removal.