Imagine a multinational manufacturing company being asked to search every nook and cranny of its disaster recovery backup
tapes for documents containing hundreds of keyword search terms. The
company spends millions of dollars conducting a search of its databases,
only to face a multimillion-dollar fine for failing to produce all of
the necessary documents.
While that manufacturing company is fictional, an increasing number of enterprises are confronting this very real challenge: e-discovery, the process through which electronic data is requested, found, secured and searched to be used as evidence in a court of law. E-mail, instant message logs, PowerPoint presentations and tweets on Twitter are among the data that can be called into evidence in U.S. court cases because of a December 2006 amendment to the U.S. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure to encompass electronically stored information.
“The bottom line is: Whether it’s e-mail, text messaging or some other Web 2.0 technology, everything is grist for the e-discovery mill,” warns Jason R. Baron, director of litigation at the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, the agency responsible for preserving all of the documents and materials created by the federal government.
With U.S. courts empowered to order companies to quickly produce the right data, organizations must preserve and be prepared to examine mounds of electronic data with the precision of a forensics team. Failure to produce the right records can expose a company to legal fines, unfavorable judgments, increased operating costs and a tarnished corporate reputation.
These risks should serve as a wake-up call for lawyers and IT professionals alike, many of whom maintain a manual, ad hoc approach to e-discovery in response to litigation and regulatory inquiries. Too many businesses rely on a hodgepodge of technologies to reactively identify and report relevant content and data.
While that manufacturing company is fictional, an increasing number of enterprises are confronting this very real challenge: e-discovery, the process through which electronic data is requested, found, secured and searched to be used as evidence in a court of law. E-mail, instant message logs, PowerPoint presentations and tweets on Twitter are among the data that can be called into evidence in U.S. court cases because of a December 2006 amendment to the U.S. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure to encompass electronically stored information.
“The bottom line is: Whether it’s e-mail, text messaging or some other Web 2.0 technology, everything is grist for the e-discovery mill,” warns Jason R. Baron, director of litigation at the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, the agency responsible for preserving all of the documents and materials created by the federal government.
With U.S. courts empowered to order companies to quickly produce the right data, organizations must preserve and be prepared to examine mounds of electronic data with the precision of a forensics team. Failure to produce the right records can expose a company to legal fines, unfavorable judgments, increased operating costs and a tarnished corporate reputation.
These risks should serve as a wake-up call for lawyers and IT professionals alike, many of whom maintain a manual, ad hoc approach to e-discovery in response to litigation and regulatory inquiries. Too many businesses rely on a hodgepodge of technologies to reactively identify and report relevant content and data.
It’s now or never
With data volumes at companies rapidly expanding, the time is ripe for organizations to view all electronic documents, no matter how seemingly insignificant, as critical assets that must be managed strategically. Fortunately, companies can take steps to better comply with the rules of e-discovery and minimize their risk of exposure to legal fines and burdensome operating costs. Here are some strategies to consider:
With U.S. courts empowered to order
companies to quickly produce the right data, organizations must preserve
and be prepared to examine mounds of electronic data with the precision
of a forensics team.
- Collaborate. The cafeteria isn’t the only place a company’s IT employees and legal experts should cross paths. Techies and lawyers must work together to develop a strategy for saving and storing electronic documents, as well as making them readily accessible. “Lawyers, IT people and records managers need to sit together and decide who the custodians of data are before a crisis hits,” says Baron.
- Create standardized policies and IT practices. Don’t just leave your data retrieval processes to chance. Companies need to create standardized policies and IT practices for identifying, storing and collecting data, Baron advises. These policies and practices should be enforced enterprise-wide for a consistent e-discovery strategy.
- Establish an interdepartmental knowledge council. One of the smartest ways to avoid finger-pointing when a crisis erupts is to create a team of go-to people—department heads who take on the responsibility of overseeing the technical and legal requirements of e-discovery on an ongoing basis. Consisting of IT, human resources, accounting and legal representatives, this team pools resources and knowledge to set e-discovery policies and procedures as well as update one another on trends and developments in their respective fields.
- Purge regularly. Mergers, acquisitions, Web 2.0 technologies and legacy systems can result in a mountain of antiquated and unnecessary data that is nearly impossible to sift through. To avoid such a fate, companies would be wise to establish clear-cut policies on what records must be kept, how they should be stored and for how long. “Many corporations and institutions do not have a handle on what data each employee has stored in his or her account, so there’s all this knowledge that’s not being properly bundled or stored,” says Baron.
- Evangelize e-discovery. The urgency of readily retrieving electronic data for legal purposes shouldn’t be a secret. Companies need to inform employees of the importance of preserving e-mail and educate them about an organization’s potential exposure to fines and increased operating costs associated with poor records management. Seminars, webinars and guest speakers can help educate employees on e-discovery and minimize litigation risks.
- Put technology to use. Of course, people and processes are only a part of preparing for e-discovery. Powerful technology used for data warehousing, business intelligence (BI), e-mail archiving and records management can also help structure data collections for easy storage and retrieval. A master data management solution, for example, can provide a single view of an enterprise’s data, thereby improving the availability of high-quality information at the right time. Similarly, the right data backup and restoration tools can help companies get a better handle on the exponential growth of their data volumes as well as ensure the long-term survival of data in case of e-discovery needs.
1 comments:
Excellent blog very nice and unique information related to electronic data.
thanks for sharing...very nice comtent.
Electronic data discovery
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