Data Collection in eDiscovery: Are Field Collections a Thing of the Past?
Digital transformation (DX) is a core pillar of successful businesses today. Corporations continue to invest in technology to improve their productivity, enable secure remote data access, and provide a seamless online experience for customers and users. As a by-product DX has also dramatically changed how eDiscovery data collection is conducted. The once exclusively manual data collection in eDiscovery has increasingly given way to remote collection.
Traditional Field Collection in eDiscovery
Traditionally, companies involved in lawsuits or investigations have hired eDiscovery providers to collect electronically stored information (ESI) that may be relevant to the case. The digital data was often only available on an individual custodian’s computer(s) or on premise network servers.
Manual ESI collection was time-consuming and costly. A skilled professional had to perform the collection to properly preserve the metadata and establish a chain of custody that met evidence admissibility standards.
A consultant would travel to the company network locations and custodians to extract the needed data from their laptop, desktop, or mobile phone. You’d often see a parade of people entering and exiting a conference room where the consultant was trapped for hours, performing the collections. Of course, sometimes you got lucky and the consultant could collect email data from a company’s central email server.
Manual ESI collection methods also involve expensive fees for the skilled forensic experts who conduct the collections. On top of that, the travel expenses add up, especially with multiple (global) company sites to visit.
Read full article at https://www.knovos.com/blog/data-collection-in-ediscovery-are-field-collections-a-thing-of-the-past/
