Vendors and software providers in the legal space have always been held to high standards for the secure management of client information. But in the aftermath of cyberbreaches that rocked several large companies in 2014, even the legal technology space is facing renewed scrutiny regarding how data is collected and used.

Because e-discovery software primarily collects information used in court documents and legal proceedings it is not generally a source of contention for the risk of data leaks. However, even this space needs to tighten its approach to handling secure data, said Arestotle Thapa, CEO and CTO of Venio Systems in an interview with Legaltech News. Thapa said Venio is aware of the risks and has tools in place to ensure that accountability is maintained when their software accesses client information.

“Most e-discovery systems, including the one developed by Venio, are sold in business-to-business context to perform e-discovery related tasks. The need to store private user information is very minimal in this context. However for the purpose of audit and accountability, users are identified and their activities logged within the system,” Thapa said. “Where privacy could come in play is not the end user's data, but the data the user is reviewing, be it their customers' data or their own internal data. In order to protect those types of data, we have mechanisms including personal identifiable information detection and flagging applets and removal of the PII information.”