Who is this Bill Roach guy anyway?
Sounds like the sort of answer you would get from someone in ND not MN.
 
A couple of points here. One is that Bill is probably right. Do your CBA and check with legal but you MIGHT be opening yourelf up to some risk. 
Secondly, and maybe more importantly, it sounds like you may be falling prey to a shared illness in our profession, integrating techonlogy because we can not because we asked for it.  So much of what has developed in recent years is because IT has made it available and convinced somethat it is a good idea. While there is potential value to integrating new technologies we are at times to eager to grab them. Money is made available and if we don't reach for the brass ring now we might not get it later. The effect is that we put these tools in place and then spend the five years fixing the problems generated by the "solution". The courts have remained fairly consistent over the years and so many solutions are outside the bounds of what is prudent. I would urge caution in this particular case.
 
Having said all this there might be an archival application for this tool. Descriptive needs in the archival arena are much higher. Using this tool in a limited approach might not be a bad idea. The risk would be much lower. Make the ability optional and not required in your policy and procedures. By doing this the lack of the information would not be as likely to be seen as concealing. It would also increase the abilty to retrieve the record in the future. 
 
Chris Flynn
 

 

> Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2011 12:33:22 -0500
> From: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Chain of Custody?
> To: [log in to unmask]
> 
> >>"Who is doing anything with document hash values (or anything of the sort) to validate that a document as declared hasn't changed over time to be able to prove later that it is the same, unaltered document?"<<
> 
> Based on experience, I would not try to use it for this purpose. First, what happens if only some of the documents you are required to produce are hashed. The obvious inference is documents without the hash are suspect. If so, you will likely have the uncomfortable task of trying to prove the defensibility of the unhashed documents and the basis for the business decision for hashing only some of the content. Without the hash, the issue will most likely never be raised.
> 
> The second issue has to do selection of technology. Given scant resources, why would an organization invest in a hashing technology when the only benefit is defensibility during legal actions. The same results can come from a properly deployed and managed ECM solution which provides a number of additional advantages to the company. ECM improves employee productivity, reduces duplication, improves access to information, in addition to providing defensibility data.
> 
> Bill Roach, CRM
> 
> Opinions are my own and not those of my employer or any other entity.
> 
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