Interview: Growing Importance of E-Discovery for Public Sector Organizations

The March/April 2006 issue of Technology in Government features an interview with Peg Duncan at Justice Canada ("IT needs better management tools, practices, for electronic information"), where she is director, business opportunities and emerging technologies.

"The fact is 93 per cent of information these days is created electronically and only 30 per cent is ever printed, so that's the fundamental problem, to say nothing of the fact that electronic documents can be copied all over the place, which complicates it. Back in the days of well-disciplined records management you had one copy that was on the file and all other copies were destroyed. That isn't happening. Furthermore, there is another element which is just part of human nature that e-mail messages tend to be much more frank, so you will find people saying things that on reflection they would perhaps not say... With e-discovery who knows where all that relevant information may be, but the odds are it's in the electronic systems."

The interview touches upon litigation support tools (imaging and encoding tools), information management and retention policies in organizations, new challenges for government from complex lawsuits, and RDIMS (the federal government electronic document management system).

Additional info:

• Duncan worked on the development of e-discovery guidelines for the province of Ontario
• Information on RDIMS from Public Works and Government Services Canada.