Information Nation: Seven Keys to Information Management Compliance, Second Edition

Chapter 9. Information Management Policy Issues

A compliant Information Management program must address myriad policy issues. The intention of this chapter is not, however, to provide a catalogue of those issues. Rather, this chapter focuses on a selection of issues that are worthy of specific focus because they commonly seem to cause problems for organizations, either because of their complexity or their relative newness.

Issue #1: Electronic Discovery

In this...era of widely publicized evidence destruction by document shredding, it is well to remind litigants that such conduct will not be tolerated in judicial proceedings. Destruction of evidence cannot be countenanced in a justice system whose goal is to find the truth through honest and orderly production of evidence under established discovery rules.

Cabnetware, Inc. v. Sullivan, 1991 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 20329

Increased reliance on information technology has inevitably led to greater use of electronic evidence in litigation, investigations, audits, and other formal proceedings. In fact, according to the courts, "[c]omputers have become so commonplace that most court battles now involve discovery of some type of computer-stored information."^[90] Litigators often take advantage of this lack of preparation by making digital information, especially e-mail, a target of discovery.

Every organization involved in litigation, audits, investigations, and other formal proceedings needs to turn over all relevant information in their "care, custody, ...