Collection – Part of the “DSi Five Factors EDD Processing Model”
Data collection is the process of gathering information from identified sources while ensuring the accuracy and reliability of the collected information.
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Collection Overview &
Collection is a very important step of the E-Discovery process that is often overlooked and incorrectly executed. Proper collection techniques are critical to the preservation of data and metadata, which could possibly contain information critical to the matter at hand.
Incorrect data collections often result in spoliation, which is the corruption or altering of data or metadata. Altering of metadata can have negative effects on your case such as: sanctions, dismissals, increased costs associated with the recollection and processing of information, and, possibly the most important, attorneys who are not focused on their job, which is winning the case.
Data Collection Difficulties
The task of correctly identifying where the data for the matter lies is very difficult for multiple reasons:
- User Permissions are non-existent
- No Litigation Hold in Place
- No documented data retention policy
- No logical structure for data storage
- Users are not accepting of their data being collected
- Users do not know where all data may exist
- Working from home
- Non-cooperative IT staff
Why Use DSi?
To alleviate the above listed problems, it is best that a third party vendor conduct the data collection. And as that third party, we will document all data sources and verify all collected data against the original source media to verify its integrity. The use of a third party vendor also removes the possible assumption of “Selective Collection”, which means that the company’s IT department performing the collection creates a conflict of interest that can be brought into question in the courtroom, whereas a third party vendor holds no stake in the outcome of the case.
Through employee interviews, meetings with IT staff and the distribution of questionnaires we can identify the data stores that are pertinent to the case while leaving data that is not. We can also help develop audit procedures for opposing counsel’s data collection methods to ensure that everything you need has been collected in a proper manner.