Even ignoring electronic data discovery costs, the cumulative infrastructure and operational costs of hoarding data and data media are enormous. Many organizations have hundreds of thousands of unneeded tapes and terabytes of electronic files that have not been looked at in years, incurring significant backup, maintenance, and storage costs.
Business executives and lawyers worry that the data might contain information that is subject to a legal hold or be relevant to some existing or future litigation—and that its destruction could be second-guessed by adversaries and courts, resulting in spoliation sanctions. So it’s not surprising that so many are reluctant to say, “Throw it out.”
Yet saving everything is not an insurance policy—any comfort derived is illusory. In fact, keeping everything to avoid being subject to sanctions actually increases risks.