If your office retrieves records, you know there are three facts inherent in gathering personally identifiable information:

Data security is a complicated task requiring constant updating and monitoring against threats both large and small. The majority of us need to take the word of the companies housing our data that it is safe and secure, unfortunately, many companies fall short of this. Security surrounding data is often a modern-day version of The Emperor’s New Clothes. Like Hans Christian Andersen’s short tale, we are left to the word of the security tailors that the data is clothed in security that we could not possibly understand. The best security, we are told, is the security we cannot see. It is not until a child, or a hacker in our modern update of the tale, looks at the nonexistent security and yells out that there is no security, accesses the data and causes embarrassment to the emperor, the tailors, and the company holding that data cloaked in invisible security. The exposure can be costly and embarrassing.

As we are about to enter a new decade of our not-so-new Millenium, we are coming to terms with the speed and the ever-changing landscape of how communication technologies are transforming many areas of our lives, including legal.

“To have a firm persuasion of our work - to feel that what we do is right for ourselves and good for the world at the exactly same time - is one of the greatest triumphs of human existence.”
- David Whyte Crossing the Unknown Sea, Work as a Pilgrimage of Identity