E-Discovery and Compliance Risks Posed by the iPad

http://ow.ly/6iDPv

Article by John Martin, appearing on law.com on the LTN blog, on the corporate counsel webpage.

This article discusses many of the compliance risks, and eDiscovery challenges that are caused by iPad usage.

As the author points out, using iPads come with certain responsibilities, "Rule 34 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure is written broadly enough to cover new devices, such as iPads, that create, transmit, and preserve electronically stored information. As companies deploy more and different devices, dispersing their sources of ESI, the risk that preservation and collection efforts will fail to prevent spoliation and other e-discovery perils increases."

As a further challenge to corporate I.T. policies,  the article states "The iPad's lean design and engaging user interface encourage users to draft, import, modify, and save business documents at a rate well beyond that of more traditional mobile devices. That phenomenon, coupled with the possibility of inconsistent or infrequent synchronization between iPads and the company network, increases the likelihood that unique data will reside on iPads."


An additional compliance risk is also created by iPad use, as the author states, "Employees who are free to add or delete their own iPad apps may unknowingly create legal and compliance risks. For example, an employee who deletes an app may unintentionally also delete all content related to that application, including user-created or downloaded content. To the extent that this application contains critical business data, or data subject to a litigation hold, its loss could carry serious consequences."

Hence it is clear that there are many reasons to address the use of iPads in the corporate environment.  For those corporations that fail to so, the threat of spoliation sanctions looms large.