New Tools for Cost-Effective Information Governance
The best solution will also reduce costs through efficient data storage in the archive. For example, the repository's automated processes can expire data in accordance with retention policies. Moreover, single-instance storage—only available in certain solutions—will reduce unnecessary growth of duplicative data. All of which lessens litigation risks as it removes data available for future litigation.
An effective archiving solution can also diminish legal risks since it takes data management out of the exclusive control of operations level employees. Employees can use the software to access their archived email and other documents. However, they cannot delete or modify those materials. This is significant since employees may be tempted to conceal their errors. Moreover, ordinary employees may lack the depth of corporate knowledge necessary to determine what documents must be retained for business, legal or regulatory purposes.
And by relying on an automated process—rather than employees—to manage and expire data, an organization may further reduce litigation risks through the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) 37(e) "safe harbor" for the destruction of electronic information. That provision is designed to protect organizations from court sanctions when the ordinary, good faith operation of their automated systems causes email, archival data and other electronic information to be overwritten and destroyed. An effective data archive whose automated processes expire documents under company retention policies will therefore dovetail with the safe harbor's requirements.
A Solution for Legal and Regulatory Demands
An information governance solution can also help an organization facilitate the process for addressing legal and regulatory demands while at the same time reducing legal fees. In order to do so, the solution must truly be end-to-end. That requires compatibility between the central data archive and the e-discovery solution. Incompatible tools will require engaging—and paying—third-party vendors for work that could otherwise be accomplished at no cost. In contrast, compatible solutions will enable a company to quickly identify and collect pertinent materials from the archive for immediate processing, search and analysis without the involvement of vendors.
The right solution must also enable an organization to deploy legal holds on various custodians across multiple cases. In addition, all user actions should be transparent. This way, an organization can establish a chain of custody for each document across the entire information governance process. All of which will obviate costly investigations that are often required to address an organization's questionable data management practices and production efforts.
Finally, companies must have the functionality of efficient search and analysis tools. With the right solution, those tools can significantly reduce the amount of potentially relevant information that must be reviewed prior to production. And just like the other aspects of an effective e-discovery solution, streamlining the search and analysis process will also slash legal expenses.
The right cloud offering and information governance software have the potential to respectively help organizations store, manage and discover their information efficiently, cost effectively and in a defensible manner. Which is the right choice depends only on what works best for a particular organization. Under either solution, an organization should ultimately retain information that is significant or that otherwise must be kept for business, legal or regulatory purposes—and nothing else.
Symantec is a global leader in providing security, storage and systems management solutions to help consumers and organizations secure and manage their information-driven world. Our software and services protect against more risks at more points, more completely and efficiently, enabling confidence wherever information is used or stored.