Legal Brief: Legal Holds Prompt Integrators to Preserve Records…or Else

Types : Bylined Articles

Whether for an internal or external incident, data retention is a key legal concept for a typical security business.

In business, we accumulate and sometimes preserve data. To manage all of it and comply with law, most sophisticated companies have data retention polices. Also known as a records retention policy, a data retention policy is a set of guidelines used by organizations to archive information generated or received by the organization and to set rules for how long that data should be kept.

Such policies are developed in accordance with internal, legal, and regulatory requirements. If your company does not have a data retention policy, you should prepare and implement such a policy.

Data retention policies help you manage the normal operations of a business; however, when a problem arises – such as anticipated, threatened or actual litigation – the guidelines in your data retention policy may not be sufficient or may have to be suspended.

Suppose someone alleges that you engaged in deceptive sales practices, performed a faulty security system installation, failed to monitor an alarm signal properly, or an employee contends that they were wrongfully terminated. In those circumstances, your data retention policy may be at odds with your duty to preserve documents and data in defense of the claim.

[…]

To read the full article, please click here.