"Those who would forsake essential liberty for safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -Benjamin Franklin
Posted on 12/02/2006 10:22:28 AM PST by HighWheeler
WASHINGTON -- U.S. companies will need to keep track of all the e-mails, instant messages and other electronic documents generated by their employees thanks to new federal rules that go into effect Friday, legal experts say.
The rules, approved by the Supreme Court in April, require companies and other entities involved in federal litigation to produce "electronically stored information" as part of the discovery process, when evidence is shared by both sides before a trial.
The change makes it more important for companies to know what electronic information they have and where. Under the new rules, an information technology employee who routinely copies over a backup computer tape could be committing the equivalent of "virtual shredding," said Alvin F. Lindsay, a partner at Hogan & Hartson LLP and expert on technology and litigation.
James Wright, director of electronic discovery at Halliburton Co., said that large companies are likely to face higher costs from organizing their data to comply with the rules. In addition to e-mail, companies will need to know about things more difficult to track, like digital photos of work sites on employee cell phones and information on removable memory cards, he said.
Both federal and state courts have increasingly been requiring the production of relevant electronic documents during discovery, but the new rules codify the practice, legal experts said.
Theyll either have to work or hang out by the water cooler
I miss the days of smoke filled rooms; cutting deals.
This was discussed on Fox&Friends earlier in the week.
IIRC, they concluded that companies might require employees to use their own phones and then the companies would reimburse them. That way, the phone records could only be attained by individual court orders, if at all.
I think people are pretty dumb to IMing at work. You are begging for a pink slip.
Storage will be the biggest expense. You can no longer re-use storage media as using the media over again will mean you are destroying potential evidence.
Also, the fuzzy requirements that a company know and store what is on employees personal media (when it pertains to the business), like cell phones and thumb drives, will be a nightmare.
I believe this new law will lead to a huge increase in plea bargain deals for companies involved in federal litigation, whether they are guilty or not.
A lot of companies already do this. At my last job, every e-mail we ever sent and received could be retrieved in less than 5 minutes if the IT people wanted to do it.
Must be tracked? I doubt it.
Sounds like the brain dead media reporting without knowing all the facts.
I never NEVER send anything over company email that I wouldn't want my boss to read. Many managers read emails anyway, including a good friend of mine who began to notice his boss making comments about things that only he and his coworkers had emailed about.
Some companies actively use IM during the workday. IBM for example, uses NotesBuddy; an IM system built into Lotus Notes.
It depends.
I use IM nearly constantly, but it's 90% work related. I can have 5 windows open at once, exchanging info on 5 topics and have a record of it at the end. It is much faster than that freakin e-mail, and you can word-copy the entire exchange when you are done. If you get caught up on something else, you can always wait 5-15 minutes to respond.
Not much different that posting on FR.
Is there a requirement regarding how long emails, etc must be saved by a company?
"U.S. companies will need to keep track of all the e-mails, instant messages and other electronic documents generated by their employees thanks to new federal rules that go into effect Friday, legal experts say."
I wonder whether that will apply to employees' participation in on-line fora (like... Free Republic?) from their work computers.
This is nuts.
This means that every company has to save everything they / employees have ever written, with reasonable regard to statutes of limitation.
A company couldn't possibly sort out exactly what was "important" and what is superfulous detail of an everyday e-mail. So they have to retain it all.
Lawyers will simply seek to win cases on what's not available. No Evidence = Guilty verdict. A rule like this will slaughter small businesses. Good going SC.
I don't get it .. what are people doing using their company's computer system in order to play their games and do personal stuff .. whatever happened to supporting your employer and giving him the time he's paying you to do your job.
If you're that bored or don't like your job - instead of using your employer to goof off .. why not start searching for another job you would like better .. or go back to school .. there's lots available on the internet.
I have email at work - but I use it for work - not personal stuff. I have personal email at home.
So the answer is .. if you use your computer at work - for work - then you shouldn't have anything embarassing you don't want revealed.
Good question, the statute of limitations should kick in at some point. Also, what if you buy crappy media that fails after so many years?
It gets old, having to explain how the problems with IMs outweigh the benefits, literally at least 20 to 1. Starting with the fact that 99.99999% of all work IMs are just people gossiping and screwing off.
IMs are just another way for people not to work.
Emails are bad enough....the ratio of screwing around via emails is easily around 50%.
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