Data and Information Responsibility for eDiscovery: Components of Required Disclosure

Three Components of Required Disclosure for eDiscovery

Question

Three central concepts define what type of data and information an organization is responsible for pertaining to eDiscovery.

Which of the following are the three components that comprise required disclosure?

Answers

Explanations

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A. B. C. D.

D.

Data that falls under the purview of an eDiscovery request is that which is in the possession, custody, or control of the organization.

Although this is an easy concept in a traditional data center, it can be difficult to distinguish who actually possesses and controls the data in a cloud environment due to multitenancy and resource pooling.

Although these options provide similar-sounding terms, they are ultimately incorrect.

The correct answer to this question is D. Possession, custody, control.

eDiscovery, or electronic discovery, refers to the process of collecting, preserving, and producing electronically stored information (ESI) in response to a legal request or investigation. This can include a wide range of data, such as emails, instant messages, documents, social media posts, and other electronic records.

In the context of eDiscovery, there are three key concepts that determine an organization's responsibility for managing and producing ESI: possession, custody, and control.

Possession refers to the physical or electronic location of ESI. If an organization has possession of ESI, it means that the data is physically located on their servers, devices, or storage media.

Custody refers to the responsibility and control that an organization has over ESI. This includes the ability to access, manage, and modify the data, as well as the responsibility to preserve and protect the data from deletion, corruption, or loss.

Control refers to the legal authority and power an organization has over ESI. This includes the ability to make decisions about the use, access, and sharing of the data, as well as the responsibility to produce the data in response to a legal request or investigation.

In summary, the three components that comprise required disclosure in eDiscovery are possession, custody, and control. Organizations must understand these concepts in order to effectively manage and produce ESI in response to legal requests or investigations.