There's an App - and a Risk for That

http://ow.ly/6gQg6

Article by John Martin, Esq. partner at Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough, appearing on law.com on the Corporate Counsel website.

The article touches on the use of iPads in the corporate environment, and the fact that much of the ESI stored in iPads could be subject to a production request in litigation.  To minimize this potential risk, the author suggests a number of steps:

"Because of all the above concerns, legal departments should consider adopting the following procedures to protect the confidentiality of their companies' data. You can institute these measures as company policies, and circulate them among all employees issued company iPads:

• The company bears no responsibility for an employee's personal use of the iPad.


• Employees should have no expectation of privacy in using the company's electronic resources, including all personally owned hardware to the extent it stores ESI associated with company business.


• Before using them for company business, employees should make the iPad available to IT personnel for implementation of security settings.


• Employees are expected to immediately report any loss or theft of an iPad, or possible unauthorized access to an iPad.


• Remote wipe will be initiated immediately when any iPad is lost or stolen.


• Pursuant to records management policy, employees must consent to dispose of data from any iPad used for company business when retention of such ESI on the iPad is no longer necessary for legal hold or company retention purposes.


• Limits on downloading apps shall be enforced, and specific apps for corporate business shall be required.


• Limited use or designation of specific acceptable social networking sites shall be enforced.


• For legal hold purposes, existing policies and notifications also extend to business content stored on iPads.


• Employees must affirmatively accept the duty to personally enforce records management and litigation hold directives across their iPad content."