Electronic discovery, or E-Discovery, is the electronic aspect of identification, preservation, processing, review and production of electronically stored information (ESI) for civil litigation, criminal investigation, regulatory enquiry, internal investigation or simply in the context of a regulatory compliance disclosure. ESI includes information that is stored in locations such as, but not limited to, emails, documents, presentations, databases, voicemail, audio and video files, social media, and web sites.
The Discovery and Investigations Unit in IT Security Technologies intends to provide e-Discovery services to existing Investigative Authorities and intends to provide e-Discovery as a Service to other key stakeholders in HC/PHAC. Therefore, robust processes and tools are required to meet the demands of the multiple Investigative Authorities, while maintaining the chain of custody. Currently, Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada’s electronically-stored information (ESI) resides in many different formats and on a variety of storage media, crossing organizational and geographical boundaries.