Extract from Reveal’s article “What Every Organization Should Know About Evidence Preservation”
Organizations must begin preserving evidence as soon as they anticipate a legal dispute, securing both physical and digital evidence. Evidence preservation requires strict adherence to protocols to maintain its integrity, authenticity, and legal admissibility.
Over approximately four years, between October 2020 and September 2024, no legal action was taken in more than 30,000 prosecution cases in England and Wales due to missing, lost, or damaged evidence, according to a BBC article. Among them were over 550 sexual offences and 70 homicides. Improper evidence preservation can lead to similar issues in claims or lawsuits.
Evidence preservation is the process of taking all necessary measures to prevent the loss, damage, or alteration of evidence, ensuring it remains reliable and usable in a legal proceeding. The process is triggered by the legal hold process, which mandates the preservation of all relevant evidence when litigation is anticipated or pending.
If your organization receives legal holds, an eDiscovery platform and robust information governance software can help ensure compliance with this directive. The former provides the technology and workflows needed to legally and defensibly preserve electronically stored information (ESI); the latter has the tools and framework to manage data throughout the evidence preservation lifecycle.
