Knowledge

Bedell Cristin hosted a seminar on 17 January 2013 for nearly 100 clients on the subject of data management, and in particular electronic data management.

Chaired by Litigation partner David Cadin and with an expert panel comprising Dr Stephen Chiang, Advocate Edward Drummond from law firm Bedell Cristin and Kelvin McGregor-Alcorn, a Director leading the Electronic Disclosure Group at Deloitte London, the seminar covered a large number of the challenging issues presented by electronic data management.

A few facts:

• "In 2011 we ... create[d] more data than in the entire previous history of mankind" and the same was probably true in 2012 and will probably be true for 2013

• 1 million business e-mail messages are sent each second, or about 90 billion per day

• 1 gigabyte will store 10,000 documents (or nearly 900,000 pages of plaintext).

• The average size of corporate users' email boxes is 30 to 50 gbs (300,000 to 500,000 documents).

• It would take one person, working seven hour days, 357 days to review 300,000 documents at the rate of 30 seconds per document

The real issues:

• You can be required to disclose electronic records in a wide variety of circumstances

• The time periods for disclosing this material can be very short (measured in hours, not days)

• The more data you keep, the greater the task that will be required to identify relevant records

• These are not issues which have probably featured at Board level

• Yet if they are not managed properly, they could threaten the continued existence of your business

Four key points:

• Have a broad discussion in your business now and at Board level about the data you hold

• Be proactive, be prepared and have a protocol for dealing with electronic data

• Do not be afraid to delete in accordance with your policy

• Be careful on acquisitions about the data you receive and how you deal with it

This is not a topic you can afford to ignore. Manage the risk now and avoid the crisis by contacting David Cadin or Edward Drummond for further assistance in relation to these issues.