You may have read the recent report produced by the working party chaired by the Honourable Mr Justice Cresswell which looked at Electronic Discovery (e-discovery) and the way in which it is starting to impact the UK legal system. By drawing on comparisons with the US, this excellent report considers the particular problems thrown up by the disclosure of emails and other electronic documents. As a leading provider of eDiscovery services globally, eMag Solutions welcomes any report that seeks to address the specific complexities that might be introduced. However, there are several issues with this report…
Firstly, the report seems to make no distinction between back-up and archive tapes. In practice, these are different, have distinct uses and can be used in different ways as part of disclosure. Back-up tapes simply hold very recent copies of the active data and are often overwritten on a daily or weekly basis which means their use is limited to data held in that period. Archive tapes are used to take regular and complete copies of active data, which are then stored away, often off-site, for long periods of time. This means that full data restoration can be provided for multiple points in time.
One of the main issues that both prompted and was addressed by The Cresswell Report was that of the cost of eDiscovery. The service delivered by eMag uses a single source for data from multiple file-types, client locations and individuals. By reducing to one the source for these, the complexity and cost of discovery can be greatly reduced. Further reduction is achieved by using sophisticated techniques to de-duplicate documents and increase the rapidity with which targeted data is identified.
Our use of tape as a single source of data from multiple file types, locations and individuals and our ability to quickly identify those that match the search criteria means that we can more easily and cost effectively conduct a wider ranging search, involving a greater number of documents and a wider timeframe that will still be regarded as reasonable.
The Cresswell Report rightly spends time discussing the issues around destruction of documents in line with standard business rules. In particular this impacts eDiscovery, since business, to conserve expensive electronic storage, routinely adopt destruction policies based on document age and importance. Using Archive tapes in the way that eMag does means that these issues may be removed, since we introduce the ability to easily extract mails from aged data, thus reconstituting documents such as emails from periods prior to their deletion.
In commenting on various storage mediums and referencing tape in particular, The Cresswell Report considers that the obsolescence of hardware used in the creation of electronic documents (with specific reference to tape technologies) provides a significant barrier to their effective use. Our production facilities feature multiple working examples of almost every tape drive manufactured enabling us to immediately analyse all logical and physical tape formats.
Again considering back-up data specifically, The Cresswell Report states that this can be difficult and costly to restore particularly as it may be compressed. The techniques employed by eMag mean that this does not introduce any complexity to the processing of tape.
Considering residual data i.e. that left when material is deleted from an active system, The Cresswell Report considers this to be time consuming and expensive to retrieve. This is correct, though by using tapes created prior to any deletion; files can be restored and examined in their original state.
The Cresswell Report also cautions that the analysis of active data i.e. that resident on a system at the point examination takes place, will simply present a ?point in time? snap-shot of the data. We completely endorse this and would highlight the distinct benefit that data sourced from tape has. Archive tape based data, since it can be retrieved from multiple points in time, can evidence actions taken over a period of time and can show what changes have been made to individual files.
In conclusion, the use of archive tape as an electronic evidence source delivers significant benefits that address a number of the points raised in The Cresswell Report and that reduce the complexity, cost and burdensome nature that eDiscovery might otherwise represent:.
Data can be retrieved from a number of points in time providing distinct improvements over the ?single point in time? provided by traditional desktop and server examinations.
Data can be sourced from points in time that precede any subsequent file deletion.
Tape provides a single source for all file types including eMail, documents and financial reports reducing the complexity and cost of the process.
Tape can be used to retrieve data from multiple sites, systems and individuals again simplifying the process and removing cost.
Sophisticated forensic techniques mean that duplicate files can quickly be identified and removed reducing the time and cost of examination.
The extensive facilities that eMag maintain mean that perceived difficulties associated with processing tape, such as obsolete drives and compressed data, do not introduce complexity or additional cost.
We strongly believe that tape should be considered as a key component of every eDiscovery case and have produced a White Paper that details the reasons behind our beliefs and the ways in which tape can be used to make the process less burdensome and more appropriate. If you would like a copy of this white paper please follow the link on the right hand side of this page.
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