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Electronic Discovery (or E-Discovery) refers to any process
in which electronic data is sought, located, secured, and
searched with the intent of using it as evidence in a civil
or criminal legal case. Electronic Discovery can be carried
out offline on a particular computer or it can be done across
a network.
The average company spends between $100,000 and $1,000,000
in total ramifications per year for data loss. (Source: 7th
Annual ICSA Lab's Virus Prevalence Survey, March 2002)
New Federal Rules of Civil Procedure became law on 12-1-2006,
which most corporate lawyers and attorneys are either unfamiliar
with or have not been required to use. The Federal Rules of
Civil Procedure, specifically Rule 26, Rule 34, and Rule 45,
have been updated in accordance with Computer Forensics and
Electronic Evidence Discovery and have added many new procedures
for handling and requesting electronic information.
Various types of data may be considered as critical evidence
in a case. These types of data include:
- e-mail
- plain text and documents
- images
- calendar files
- databases
- spreadsheets
- digital faxes
- audio files
- animation
- websites
- computer applications
- viruses and sypware
With the increased usage and dependence on the Internet -
for corporate and individual communication - e-mail is a valuable
source of evidence.
There are several phases to Electronic Discovery. The collection
of data is just the first. Once a data audit has been completed
and a computer forensics or E-discovery service implemented,
then there are the tasks to process the electronic evidence
and produce the electronic evidence in a format which the
client and lawyers will accept, such as TIFFs or PDFs.
The largest obstacles for Electronic Discovery are attorneys
and companies who are not getting a Computer Forensic expert
involved early in the process and end up compromising or destroying
the data that could be important to their case.
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