Every case of litigation, a regulatory inquiry or other investigation, electronically stored information now forms an essential part of the data which is required to be made available. Such a request for your electronically stored data is called electronic disclose (E-disclosure) and may include everything, however old that media may be.
E-Disclosure is becoming increasingly complicated, due to the strict legal requirements, making it a complex and expensive process. It is therefore important that all data is handled as efficiently as possible, allowing all relevant data to be quickly identified. This data is then used to create reports, which could help avoid an escalation of costs if it avoids further queries being asked.
Sources of Information
An application for E-Disclosure will outline which electronic information needs to be supplied. Typical data sources from which E-Disclosure may be demanded for any number of individuals or the company as whole are listed below:
- Emails
- Backups, including tape media and cloud services
- Contents of hard disk drives
- Mobile device data
- Scanned documents
- Removable media such as USB devices, CD’s, DVD’s etc.
You must disclose all the information request in order to avoid any complications at a later date, in particular any deliberately withheld which would be seen as obstructing justice in a court of law. If in doubt about the relevance of any data, you either disclose it anyway or seek advice.
E-Disclosure Procedures
Cases of E-Disclosure tend to be extremely complex and time consuming, due to the sheer volume of data which must be analysed before it can be presented. The process often involves interaction with the client who may aid the search, unless they are hostile to the process. There are many procedures which must be undertaking, many of which are listed below:
- Acquisition and collation of data
- Recovery, restoration and conversion of data from tape backups
- Collecting and collating of emails
- Preparing information for data mining
- Analysing and reviewing of documents and emails
- Keyword and name analysis
- Archive and live data comparisons
- Data Processing
This results of this processing allows the relevant information and data to be used to create reports about the data requested in the E-Disclosure.
E-Disclosure Support
If your company is subject to an E-Disclosure request our Electronic Disclosure specialists can help in the search for all the relevant data. One way that can help guide identifying the relevant information is by filling in an Electronic Document Questionnaire (EDQ) supplied by our E-Disclosure expert.
Our E-Disclosure specialists are here to help our clients at all stages, from identifying the data, collection the information and collating through to producing a report and appearing in court as an expert witness if required.
