Originating Author: David Floyer
Email managers are under pressure to ensure that the cost, performance, and responsiveness of email are maintained. Senior managers notice when things go wrong. To IT, email archiving systems should be implemented in ways that have the minimum impact on operations. For example, the simplest method of populating an email archive system is to use the daily backup as a source. The alternative method of using a journaling feed introduces overhead and complexity that may impact the production email system.
However, using the email backup will not ensure that all the emails will be captured. Emails immediately deleted will not be there. Journaling would ensure that every email is captured. An email manager might well argue “To capture all the emails means installing journaling. That is expensive and just isn’t necessary just to capture a few emails”. The truth of the matter is that counsel must be able to say that they have included all emails in a discovery request. If users can hide emails by deleting them immediately, they will. If that email is discovered in (say) another organization, counsel has lost all credibility, and the organization will loose the trust of any court. The cost of that can be enormously expensive.
Action Item: It is a cost of business to ensure that all emails are captured, and that the legal department knows the full story, warts and all. It must be assumed that opposing legal counsels will know everything about email systems and will exploit any weakness mercilessly. The business must ensure that they clearly specify the business requirements for email archiving, including the requirements for provenance, permanence, and comprehensiveness. Otherwise any supposed legal umbrella will be illusory.
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