Email has evolved over the yearsandcontinues to stay relevant as bothbusiness and personal communication rely heavily onit.Researchshows75% of most businesses’ intellectual property is contained in their email and messaging systems. This makes email more than just a communication medium—it is alsoa repository of data critical to your business and employees. With such important information residing inyour inboxes, itmakes senseto take extra careto ensure this data isnotstolen or lost beforeits intendeddeletion.
What is email retention and eDiscovery?
Retaining a copy of all emails inan organization for a predefined period,regardless of whether or not they are deleted from individual mailboxes, is commonly called“email retention.” The admin decides the retention policy for an organization and ensurestheir email systems comply. Retained emails are accessible,searchable dataand can serve as legal proof orinvestigative evidence. An admin can read, access, and search for specific data within retained emails.
That brings us toeDiscovery,a process by which all retained emails can be searched and accessed using asimple interface and filters without needing to sift through emails manually or write complex code scripts.
When do legal investigations and holds come into play?
Running a business withoutdatabreaches or legal issues isideal, but in reality,it’snotalways possible. While we cannot completely avoid legal investigations, we can howeverbe prepared so they don’t catch us off guard. Prevention and readinessare not only better thanacure, but also cheaper.If yoususpect there has been an illegal transfer of information, orif your company faces litigation, you mayneed to retain email data longer thanyour usual predefined retention periods.Once applied, legal holdswill override retention rules until the investigation is closed.
Why are retention and eDiscovery important to you?
There aremultipledifferent reasons why it is becoming increasingly necessary for organizations and businesses to adopt email retention policies.
Let’s say one morning you wake up to the news thatsome of your company’sproprietary technology has been leaked,or that someone outside the company has been receiving more information than necessary abouta product under development. While panic andthe impulse to senda company-wide email rebuking whoever responsiblemight be your immediate natural reaction, a more sensible one would be to get to the root of the issue and conduct an investigation by searchingretained emailsfor sensitive keywords.Your retained emails can additionally help you defend yourselves against legal attacks or complaints,providingall necessary data when subpoenaed.
A well-designed email retention policy and eDiscovery systemwillhelp your business:
Complywith industry standards
Stay prepared for potential lawsuits
Avoid evidence tampering ordeletion
Handle security breaches or litigation
Easily extract information for legal audits
Investigate intellectual property thefts
Settle contractual disputes or internal trading
Next in this series,we’ll talkabout somebest practices fordesigning or choosing eDiscovery software,as well as what pitfalls toavoid.
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very informative.
As someone who specialised in Knowledge & Record management for nearly 20 years I am delighted to see ²վ begininning to talk about these extremely important topics. However I was hoping you would mention how the ²վ platform will tackle these issues as without the use of a third party product at the moment email retention and back up especially for departing employees is an area where ²վ Mail could improve greatly.
Thank you, Lucy! And I'm so glad you asked. As I have mentioned in this post, this is a series, and what ²վ Mail offers is also a part of the upcoming posts! Keep reading.
Good article on a nice topic. Thanks for sharing. Waiting for next one :) Cheers, Shams from techtokMunch