Automatic Deletion…A Good Idea?

http://ow.ly/b4qdn

An article by Bill Tolson posted on the eDiscovery 101 blog.

This article examines the practice of automatic deletion, which is routinely employed by many corporations.  The article refers to a recent post by the same author, which examined "defensible deletion", which involves more of a managed process than does an automatic deletion process.

The article states, "This brings up the subject of the Data Lifecycle. Fred Moore, Founder of Horison Information Strategies wrote about this concept years ago, referring to the Lifecycle of Data and the probability that the saved data will ever be re-used or even looked at again. Fred created a graphic showing this lifecycle of data.

Figure 1: The Lifecycle of data – Horison Information Systems

The above chart shows that as data ages, the probability of reuse goes down…very quickly as the amount of saved data rises. Once data has aged 90 days, its probability of reuse approaches 1% and after 1 year is well under 1%."

The author further provides concerns related to storing old electronic information, "For organizations, it’s a question of storage but more importantly, it’s a question of legal risk and the cost of eDiscovery. Any existing data could be a subject of litigation and therefore reviewable. You may recall in my last blog, I mentioned a recent report from the RAND Institute for Civil Justice which discussed the costs of eDiscovery including the estimate that the cost of reviewing records/files is approximately 73% of every eDiscovery dollar spent. By saving everything because you might someday need to reuse or reference it drive the cost of eDiscovery way up." A link to the recent blog referred to in the article is provided.

The author looks at possible ways in which to delete data, without violating legal and regulatory obligations.  The article states, "The key question to ask is; how do you get employees to delete stuff instead of keeping everything? In most organizations the culture has always been one of “save whatever you want until your hard disk and share drive is full”. This culture is extremely difficult to change…quickly. One way is to force new behavior with technology."