Destruction includes:

• the physical destruction of paper records or carriers of digital information such as hard drives and discs
• the destruction of digital information by purging or overwriting email, documents or other data from business systems

Digital information cannot be destroyed by deletion. To destroy digital information, the digital media it is stored on must be sanitised by overwriting, purging, erasing or degaussing.

• Custody transfer means that the information is transferred to another agency. Transfer often happens as a result of machinery of government changes.
• For example, one agency's information is transferred to another agency if it is merged with that other agency.
• Records identified as records of national significance are transferred to the National Archives for preservation.
• Ownership transfer can occur when business/functions are transferred to or from another government jurisdiction (eg from State to Commonwealth) or where agency business is privatised.

Although damage or alteration does not necessarily destroy a record, it changes the record and needs to be approved as a disposal action.

A records authority is issued by the National Archives. It represents a detailed analysis of an agency’s core business functions and the records and information it creates.

Records authorities are used in the process of sentencing to determine which records to keep, destroy or transfer.

Records authorities provide clarity to an agency's records management staff on how to value, handle and dispose of information.

There are 2 types of records authorities:

• Agency-specific records authorities — Used to manage the sentencing and disposal of core business information unique to an agency.
• General records authorities (GRA) — Use GRAs for business information common to many agencies, such as grant management, public and official inquiries, or the administrative house keeping records covered by AFDA Express Version 2.

Records authorities show the minimum retention period for information. However, even after information has been sentenced for disposal, agency staff review records ready for disposal to make sure the sentencing decision still applies.

For example, a record from 1983 may have been sentenced for destruction in 2019 but upon review, is considered important to our national history. In that case, the information may be resentenced for transfer to the National Archives.

Short-term or low-value information that is not needed for an agency's business, or for accountability or other purposes, can be disposed of using NAP.

Section 26 of the Archives Act 1983 prohibits altering records that are more than 15 years old without authorisation from the National Archives.

Occasionally, the National Archives suspends its disposal permissions by issuing a records disposal freeze or retention notice. These override existing records authorities. They prohibit the destruction of records related to certain events or situations until the freeze is lifted or the notice withdrawn, for example, for records required for a Royal Commission.