Email continues to dominate the exponential growth in EDiscovery, with articles written weekly on the increased volume of information. As a tool, U.S.businesses rely on email to perform activities from the mundane to the complex. The bottom line is that email is often the most complete record of a business transaction or business plan and therefore create a significant security concern. Yet it appears that many companies are still wondering why they should archive email files.
In my weekly conversations with a group of EDiscovery professionals that range from in house experts to outside consultants, the topic of Email archives is often at the forefront, mostly because the group can’t believe the number of companies that have still not implemented an email archive process. In fact, it appears that many businesses store large volumes of critical information within the email messaging system in personal archives that are neither backed up nor easily accessible through an enterprise solution. Email correspondence is now considered a “record” by the courts and therefore it is subject to all the document retention rules that exist on both the State and Federal levels.
Simply put, email archiving provides a systematic organization to preserve email messages in a centralized location that can be quickly accessed when needed. There are three common scenarios when an email archiving system is useful and needed by an organization.
Internal Research
When a company spends two years planning, developing and implementing a new product or service, there are generally tens of thousands of pages of material produced by dozens of employees in the process. There are often monthly or quarterly reports produced that summarize the data which are widely distributed during update and planning meetings. This data is often easily retrievable because of its distribution requirements. But as the saying goes, the “devil” is often in the details, which don’t make it to the update reports. Rather, as a project progresses, there are dozens of decisions, changes and information that is exchanged between team members in the form of email communication. In fact, over time, people lose track of who introduced an idea, or why a decision was made to change the design, or how market conditions influenced a decision.
So after a few employees leave, and market conditions force a revisit to the original design and decision process, the person tasked with creating a detailed timeline of the decisions that were made several years ago is forced to try and reconstruct the information. Without a central email archive, it is virtually impossible to gather and review all the emails that are relevant to the process. Oftentimes, when employees leave an organization, there files are deleted in entirety, making it impossible to retrieve any relevant information. With an email archive system implemented, the vast volume of internal research and materials that may be important to the future of the company is available and accessible.
Litigation
The second scenario involves the litigation process. EDiscovery rules often require an organization to produce emails related to the case matter, regardless of the passage of time. Without an email archive system, emails can be stored on virtually any type of media used by the company. This can include PDA’s, phones, servers, desktops or laptops and now even in the cloud. And the problem is multiplied when you have multiple business locations, remote employees or an international presence. The problem is the high cost of locating and searching every one of these device that may contain relevant information. And these costs must often be borne by the party required to provide the material in response to a document request.
Email archive systems, with a central location allow quick and efficient access to the data in response to a document request. Additionally, a quality email archive system includes an internal indexing capacity and an advanced searching process to help locate specific files and reduce the number of files that need to be examined and produced. Perhaps most importantly, with an email archive system in place, with standards and processes that are following on a schedule, document destruction procedures (the removal of material after a “reasonable” retention period) are generally accepted by the courts without a lot of question.
Compliance
Even without impending litigation, many compliance regulations exist that force a company to be more stringent in archiving email. Any record that pertains to “business activity” is subject to compliance regulations. Some businesses (finance, banks, government contracting, etc.) re highly regulated and have stringent retention policies. Compliance statutes require that data, including email, must be protected from security threats that could damage or endanger the information and further requires that data be retained in its original state, without alteration or deletion and be easily accessible whenever requested.
Email archiving stores messages in their original format. Advanced archiving tools have complex “rules” which can be created to classify which emails require archiving, which ones fall outside the parameters and can then automatically delete messages when the statutory period expires.
Two Methods for Archiving Email
There are two main methods for archiving email. In-house solutions are put in place and run by your IT department, hosted solutions are provided by third party providers under a contract to provide services. The correct choice should be made based on an evaluation of the capabilities of your existing IT department, along with an understanding of the issues surrounding each option.
In-house solution archive emails on a server located within the company. Controlled entirely by the company’s own employees, there may be better control over data integrity, security and confidentiality. In-house solutions can put a strain on the existing IT’s resources and might be expensive to maintain since it is not your core business. Systems must be constantly monitored to assure proper implementation.
Hosted solutions generally have much lower implementation and storage costs, since this is the business that they are engaged in and they can easily scale their business on an incremental basis. The expertise resides with the hosted solution and therefore your internal staff does not have to stay on top of technology changes. However, there is a loss of control and perhaps some level of confidentiality since outside parties are responsible for handling the information. Most vendors, however, offer significant security measures that make confidentiality problems less significant.
The Take Away
Regardless of your selecting an in-house or a hosted solution, it is a fiduciary responsibility for a company to implement some type of email archiving system. Email correspondence is considered by the courts as a record of your company’s business transactions. To insure that your company meets compliance statutes and will be prepared should it face litigation, it is time to take this important step. If you need assistance in evaluating how to properly address archive email in preparation for discovery, contact an EDiscovery provider with the resources to help you evaluate the best solution. Studeo Legal will be happy to provide guidance to your organization.
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