What data needs to be preserved?
The new federal rules require a party to suspend routine or intentional purging, overwriting, re-using, deleting, or any other destruction of electronic information relevant to a lawsuit, including electronic information wherever it is stored – at a University work station, on a laptop, or at an employee’s home. It includes all forms of electronic communications – e.g., email, word processing, calendars, voice messages, instant messages, spreadsheets, videos, photographs, information in PDA’s, and data in any other locations where electronic information may be stored. This electronic information must be preserved so that it can be retrieved – if necessary – at a later time. The information must be preserved in its original electronic form, so that all information contained within it, whether visible or not, is also available for inspection – i.e., it is not sufficient to make a hard copy of electronic communication.
