Companies have a vested interest in preserving internal communications for a variety of reasons — to hold actors accountable and to protect the organization from potential private and government claims or investigations that may have serious direct or collateral consequences. Companies that want to use ephemeral messaging systems can do so, but they have to understand the risks involved and tailor appropriate controls and procedures to avoid potential damage.

DOJ’s  Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs (“ECCP”) released in March 2023 authorized companies to use ephemeral messaging but emphasized several important risk considerations and controls needed to preserve robust record-keeping requirements. DOJ’s ECCP identifies three significant areas for consideration: employee use of personal devices, availability of communications platforms (e.g., Jabber, Slack, Teams, Google, Zoom), and messaging applications, including ephemeral messaging. DOJ’s ECCP noted that a company’s policies governing messaging applications “should be tailored to the corporation’s risk profile and specific business needs and ensure that, as appropriate and to the greatest extent possible, business-related electronic data and communications are accessible and amenable to preservation by the company.”)

In this podcast, Michael Volkov and Eddie Green, CEO of SnippetSentry, discuss current communications preservation requirements and technical solutions to meet them.