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What is Electronic Discovery or "E Discovery"?
What is Electronic Discovery or "E Discovery"?
| What is Electronic Discovery or "E-discovery"? |
E-discovery Electronic discovery or e-discovery as it is commonly known is a relatively recent phenomenon. It is a process in which electronic data, normally in the form of, but not limited to email communications. The requests are generally made to access the information to support a civil or criminal case in the courts. The request can refer to a particular computer, network or any type of electronic storage media. It can even mean government sanctioned hacking!It is actually quite difficult to completely erase data from a computer or a network. Even if there is no email archive solution involved. This plays into the hands of lawyers and governments in the acquiring of evidence. Multiple copies of a file are made even when transmitting a file like an email to another machine. Every hop the file makes, a copy is taken in case it gets lost on the journey. The failsafe system also allows access to those files for evidentiary purposes. In an e-discovery request, any type of electronic data can be requested. From the simple email and text file to a complete calendar or database. Movies, pictures and music can also feature heavily. This isn't to say that it should be seen as a threat to organizations. As well as being used as evidence against an entity, it can also be used as a defense. Being relatively new, e-discovery has thrown up some interesting questions about privacy, either company or personal that are still ongoing. So as useful as it might be, controversial it certainly is. |