Although I have recently mentioned mobile data in a different context, there is no harm in rubbing the point home with a second reference.

FTI’s webpage headed Mobile device eDiscovery and investigations has an infographic which, as these things are meant to do, draws attention to some of the hard facts which link mobile data and eDiscovery.

Being a US site, there is inevitably focus on the sanctions which have been faced by litigants who get this wrong. There is a more positive value, perhaps, in the guidance designed to help you get it right.

One part of the graphic illustrates a point which I make frequently – if you do not know or think about the devices which may hold potentially discoverable data then you never reach the point of deciding whether it is useful and proportionate. That applies whether you are considering your own clients’ devices or those of other parties.

Other parts of the infographic relate to business access to information which is beyond the knowledge and control of the IT department and which is the more easily overlooked as a result when an obligation arises to give discovery of it. In many cases, even the user is unaware of that he or she is creating this type of data.

It used to be possible for IT departments to trap unauthorised business use of devices. Those days are gone. FTI’s statistics suggest that the development of policies to regulate this kind of use has been slow. If eDiscovery risk and regulatory risk has not been enough to provoke activity, perhaps cyber risk will do it.

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