Is there a unique value to the ESI stored on employee-owned equipment?
Even if it has been established that an employee used personally-owned computer equipment to access company resources or perform work on behalf of the company, it’s equally important to consider the importance of the information that may be stored there. Using browser-based tools to read e-mail and view corporate information generally stores the new or modified work product on corporate servers and leaves little information on the workstation running the browser software. Sending an e-mail through Microsoft’s Outlook Web Access (“OWA”), for example, stores all information directly on a company’s Exchange server, not on the computer used to send the e-mail. Using a Blackberry or Windows Mobile-powered device to access corporate e-mail similarly synchronizes all changes onto corporate servers, also minimizing the unique information that may be stored on these devices. Citrix or Remote Desktop connections turn a computer into a glorified terminal, with all actual work performed on worksta
