Information Management Compliance

Randolph Kahn, ESQ.

Commvault Innovate 8

Chucking Daisies-The Case for Defensible Disposal

Randolph Kahn, Esq.

ARMA - NOVA

Dead Daisies Stink?“In an Aug. 15, 2005, voicemail messages addressed to company salespeople, an …employee… followed up on a “weight and diabetes sell sheet” that had recently been sent.”

“…the document written by Dr. Geller doesn’t accurately reflect the company’s position in 2000. In fact, it was not Dr. Geller’s ultimate view either. It was an initial draft for discussion purposes.”

“In response to a plaintiffs’ attorney’s question, Dr. Geller responded that the statement was “an artifact of an earlier discussion document.” WSJ 2/27/2009

There’s a fine line between cuddling and holding someone down so they can’t get away.

Information Volumes are Spooky Big

• 1800 exabytes of new information in 2011 alone?

• What about all the stored info from last 2 decades?

“I dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives.”

What is the Problem?

Organizations have been over-retaining e-information even after it is no longer needed for business & even though law would allow its destruction

I didn’t say it was your fault, I said I was blaming

you.

“But databases frequently turn into information dumps, teeming with poorly classified or outdated information.”“Growth at McKinsey Hindered Use of Data,” WSJ

Dead Daisies Live On To Smell Another Day

Old, unused, stale, unneeded, unwanted, harmful, useless, and decaying

information still exists

Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit; Wisdom is not putting it in fruit salad.

Council for Information Auto-Classification

The Council for Information Auto-Classification’s mission is to educate on and advance the use and acceptance of technologies that classify information while

reducing human involvement.http://infoautoclassification.org/

CIAC Data Explosion Survey Findings• 88% have large volumes of legacy info • 71% have no idea of the content in their

stored data• 58% are keeping information

indefinitely. • 79% indicated too much time & effort is

spent manually searching & disposing info

• 58% still rely on employees to decide how to apply corporate policies (i.e. retention, privacy, security) to their information

If a wolf can take down a

deer from either flank, does that

make him bambidextrous?

Lifecycle Seems Dead

• Old-school information lifecycle approach seems dead– Why?– Who is to blame?– What can be done?

I asked God for a bike, but I know God doesn’t work that way.

So I stole a bike and asked for forgiveness

IDC predicts storage will increase 44 X in next 10 years

IT Impact

“Handling double-digit data growth rates with single-digit budget increases is the lot of most CIOs, according to our third annual InformationWeek Analytics State of Enterprise Storage Survey. The amount of data we're actively managing continues to expand at around 20% per year, and we see a long tail of besieged IT staffs dealing with growth rates exceeding 50%. At these levels, most data centers will double storage capacity every two to three years”

To steal ideas from one person is

plagiarism.

To steal from many is

research.

Business Impact• “Through 2015 more than 85 percent of

Fortune 500 organizations will fail to effectively exploit big data for competitive advantage”(IT Business Edge, Gartner)

• “Employees spend 25% of their time looking for information” (IBM)

• “74% of the organizations said valuable information is being lost due to the lack of proper technology solutions” (CIAC Survey)

He has no enemies but is intensely disliked by his friends.

Legal & Governance Impact

• According to IDC, the size of the eDiscovery industry is expected to reach $21.8 billion in 2011

• “It costs around 20 cents to BUY 1GB of storage, however, it costs around $3,500 to REVIEW 1GB of storage” (AIIM)

• “…organizations paid a low of $750,000, and a high of $31 Million in connection with the breach response. (Privacy Compliance & Data Security)

A bartender is just a pharmacist with limited inventory

Reasonable Way to Deal with Dead Daisies?

• Keep the Dead Daisies forever

• Chuck all Daisies tomorrow

• Have people decide

• Have technology decide

• Have technology and people decide

“There are three kinds of people – Those who can count and those who can’t.”

Technology v. Manual Review

This work presents evidence supporting the contrary position: that a technology-assisted process, in which only a small fraction of the document collection is ever examined by humans, can yield higher recall and/or precision than an exhaustive manual review process, in which the entire document collection is examined and coded by humans.

“Technology-Assisted Review in E-Discovery Can Be More Effective and More Efficient Than Exhaustive Manual Review” Maura R. Grossman, JD., Ph.D. and Gordon V. Cormack, Ph.D.

“I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work, I want to achieve it through not dying.”Woody Allen

How Do Employees Do?

49.7% of all statistics are made up on the spot.

Low Hanging Fruit

• Back-up tapes

• Legacy systems

• Email system

• Shared Drives

War does not determine who is right – only who is left.

Structured and Unstructured• Is there technology that can address

different content types?• Is there technology that will deal lots of

file formats?• Is there technology that is brain dead

simple to effectively use?

The last thing I want to do is hurt you. But it’s still on the list.

Making Chucking Defensible• Diligence• Training with exemplary samples• Crawling for legal hold• Testing and tweaking system• Human review• Audit

What Do Regulators & Courts Think?

“Computer-assisted review appears to be better than the available alternatives, and thus should be used in appropriate cases. While this Court recognizes that computer-assisted review is not perfect, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure do not require perfection…Counsel no longer have to worry about being the “first” or “guinea pig” for judicial acceptance of computer assisted review. Judge Andrew Peck , Moore v. Publicis Groupe, February 22, 2012

I used to be indecisive. Not I’m not sure.

ROI for Chucking• What is the benefit of getting rid of 100

terabytes or 1 petabyte of unneeded info?

• What are the soft & hard costs saved by using tech over people?

• How does Chucking reduce the risk profile?– Litigation cost & inconvenience– Privacy– Intellectual property

I thought I wanted a career, turns out I just wanted paychecks.

Classification Technology is Not Being Used

Most companies are not using technologies to automate classification of information.

Percent of organizations not using classification technology:

• 84% in file shares

• 78% in email

“Once you can accept the universe as matter expanding into nothing that is something, wearing stripes with plaid comes easy.“ Albert Einstein

Conclusions• Too Many Dead Daisies Live• Information recreation to do business is

needed regularly• Technology needs to be used to

manage information • Risks and costs for doing nothing are a

major concern

There will be a rain dance Friday night, weather permitting.George Carlin

Thanks

He who laughs last didn't get it.

Randolph A. Kahn, ESQ. rkahn@kahnconsultinginc.com847-266-0722