Information Technology Outpacing Information Law

In seeming accord with various informal laws suggested by physicists and engineers (the most well known being Moore’s law, which says that processing power of a microchip doubles every 18 months), information technology is changing so rapidly that civil law and regulation can’t keep up.

The author sees it as a case of Star Wars technology and Gutenberg laws, and he says one technological law in particular – Kryder’s Law pertaining to the growth in capacity of information storage devices – could make some lawyers and business managers shake in their boots. Kryder’s law means that information governance must deal with the fact that “keeping everything forever” is, or soon will be, both possible and affordable.

This raises the prospect of a battle line soon to be drawn between the chief information officer (CIO) and the general counsel. Without some kind of accommodation and damper on the process, in the event of litigation or regulatory compliance requirements, legal departments could be saddled with huge bills for reviewing and categorizing information before production.

Key stakeholders within the enterprise will need to collaborate to strike an appropriate and economical balance. Management will need to determine the value of the information and what amount of resources will be needed to maintain it. Legal will need to define what information must be retained, for how long, why and under what circumstances. Information officers will need to both keep pace with technology and find appropriate and economical solutions.