THE FUTURE OF E-DISCOVERY
Electronic discovery (e-discovery) refers to any process in which electronically stored information (ESI) is sought, located, secured and searched with the intent of using it as evidence in a civil or criminal legal case. More recently, e-discovery has proved an invaluable tool when dealing with arbitrations, national and foreign regulatory investigations and internal investigations.
Organisations in the US and the UK in particular have been dealing with e-discovery for some time. But now that business transactions have become far more global in nature, companies in other countries also have to tackle e-discovery. In addition, there has been a rise in the number of regulatory investigations commenced by national and foreign regulators.
As we head into 2017, what are the key e-discovery challenges facing organisations and what can they do to ensure they are ready to respond?
Big Data
There are several aspects of modern working life that are making e-discovery increasingly complex. Data is erupting from email accounts, smartphones, tablets, social communities and search engines. Each employee is likely to send and receive multiple emails per day. And each email is likely to cross the desktops of dozens if not hundreds of individuals. That data is then archived and replicated and grows exponentially.
The sheer volume of data and the number of places in which it is stored complicates the e-discovery challenge.
Jan-Mar 2017 issue
Epiq Systems