About 5yr. log retention

[Neil Johnson]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jim Choate" <ravage at einstein.ssz.com>
...
> It's even a crime to destroy evidence in a civil (ie non-criminal) case.

That's why you hear about companies creating "data retention" policies.

They're not really about "retention".

The company sets standards that stipulate what records should be kept, how
long, and most importantly to the company that they should be destroyed
after the official retention time has passed.

By setting forth such a policy they can tell a plaintiff "We're sorry, we
don't have those documents/e-mails/data anymore. That data has been
destroyed per our records retention policy".

If they can prove that they have a policy and are following it, they can't
be accused of destroying evidence.

Nifty Huh ?

In defense of companies, it keeps ambulance chasers from subpoenaing ALL the
company's records and then finding some information (a disgruntled
employee's e-mail rant), that taken of context, makes the company appear
guilty.

After e-mails were used by the DOJ as "evidence" that Micro$oft was guilty
of "anti-competitive" practices, it was quietly proposed by legal department
at a company I know of that the e-mail system be configured to automatically
delete users e-mail after a set time period, and not allow the easy off-line
storage of messages. It was handily rejected by the IT department as
impossible to implement and shouted down by many managers who didn't want
their CYA e-mails automatically deleted.


Neil M. Johnson
njohnson at interl.net
http://www.interl.net/~njohnson
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