CIOs must focus on e-discovery, NASCIO says

The National Association of State Chief Information Officers wants state CIOs to prepare for e-discovery.

E-discovery is an important issue for both the public and private sectors as more critical business information is moved into electronic form, NASCIO officials said, adding that the successful location and retrieval of electronic information can be critical to the outcome of a lawsuit.

State CIOs may have heightened responsibility for the storage, preservation and retrieval of electronic information in response to e-discovery requests. As a result, they must ensure the proper management of state information assets in addition to the technological infrastructure for locating and retrieving that information, according to NASCIO.

NASCIO's E-Discovery Working Group issued a brief earlier this week that explains the impact for state CIOs of e-discovery requests, and encourages state CIOs to pursue a holistic approach to enterprise records management as part of a team of state government stakeholders. This team could include state legal counsel, archivists, records managers and agency business leaders.

"Through a collaborative, enterprise approach to organizing state government knowledge assets, state CIOs can be responsive to e-discovery requests and ensure that those requests can be successfully handled across state agencies," said Gary Robinson, Washington state's CIO and chairman of NASCIO's E-Discovery Working Group.

NASCIO will explore e-discovery and records management issues at its annual conference in Tucson, Ariz., Sept. 30 through Oct. 3, during a conference panel titled, "The Challenge of Electronic Records in the Digital Age."

Rutrell Yasin writes for Government Computer News, 1105 Government Information Group publication.