Businesses are facing several new realities. Their customers and clients expect them to go beyond “traditional” forms of communication into social media. Their employees prefer or even expect to be able to communicate with family, friends and others via personal email, social media and instant messaging or texting while in the workplace. And the ubiquity of mobile devices such as tablets or smartphones has caused some companies to consider implementing “Bring Your Own Device” (BYOD) policies to cut costs and increase employee satisfaction.
This trend toward mobile devices and social media has effectively blurred the distinction between communications that are personal and private and those that companies control and have responsibility for. This changing digital horizon impacts corporate records retention, employee privacy, employee supervision and data collection for the purposes of electronic discovery. This article presents a practical approach to how companies can address privacy concerns while meeting their record retention and disclosure obligations.
