Text Messages, Voice Mails And Flash Drives - Welcome To The New E-Discovery

Most companies will now be required to retain and produce a wider range of electronic data because of the new Federal Rules of Civil Procedure which were approved on December 1, 2006. The types of electronically stored information that companies could be required to produce in a lawsuit range from docs, e-mails, voice mails, text messages and just about any digital information saved on a company's server, e-mail database or employee's desktop.
IT departments, as well as corporate counsel, are not very well prepared for these changes. A recent study by Deloitte Financial Advisory Services in November 2006 found that nearly 70% of the respondents said they would require more training on their own corporate record retention policies and procedures. The respondents included CFOs, tax directors, finance directors, controllers and corporate counsel.
One way to reduce a company's risk is to implement an IT audit system. Employees tend to install additional programs to their computers often without the IT department's knowledge or approval. Instant messanger (IM) programs for example are readily available and most employees use these types of quick applications to chat with other employees as well as individuals outside of work. IMs are considered 'faster' than e-mail, but nonetheless is data being sent to and from somebody.
These 'text' messages are where companies can get in trouble. While most e-mail servers have traceable logs and backups, most employee desktop computers are not managed by the IT department and can have those features disabled. It is entirely possible for an employee (or employees) to have a lengthy conversation via text messages totally bypassing the company's e-mail server where text messages are expected to occur.
Voice mails and Flash drives are also quick methods to share information. Faxes can be sent to voice mail boxes and flash drives are a quick way to share files between computers not connected via a network.
It is these types of situations that a company can find itself in trouble when it comes to litigation. Companies should evaluate their network to find other such areas that may need attention and discuss their options on saving the data.