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Electronically Stored Information (ESI)
Practical Law Glossary Item 8-517-6434 (Approx. 3 pages)
Glossary
Electronically Stored Information (ESI)
In the context of litigation, any documents or information that are stored in electronic form. Common examples of ESI include:
- Word processing documents.
- Spreadsheets.
- Digital photographs.
- Videos.
- Emails and their attachments.
- Text and instant messages.
- Communications conducted in ephemeral messaging applications or in workplace collaboration tools.
- Call logs.
- Voicemails.
- Information stored in databases.
- Electronic records of online activity, such as social media postings and other activity.
- Data generated or stored by devices connected to the Internet of Things (IoT).
ESI may be stored on and retrieved from many sources, including:
- Computer hard drives.
- Company network servers.
- Thumb (USB) drives.
- Databases.
- The cloud.
- Mobile devices, such as mobile phones and tablet computers.
- Social media websites, such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
For more information on ESI and discovery, see the Practice Notes, Standard Documents, and Checklists in the E-Discovery Toolkit.