The Sedona Conference's international electronic information management, discovery and disclosure working group hosted a webinar Monday that looked at how e-discovery professionals and courts are subject to EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

The panel noted that the wide scope of what is defined as personally identifiable information (PII) by the GDPR includes much of the information that is generally processed during e-discovery, and that any EU data collection done by U.S. attorneys would likely have to comply to GDPR standards.

Denise Backhouse, shareholder at Littler Mendelson, said that in the pretrial context, bulk collection of data isn't OK because counsel is required to comply with GDPR protocol even when they're transferring to the U.S. She said attorneys must do everything they can to transfer only the information that is necessary for discovery.