Glossary term
ESI
ESI stands for Electronically Stored Information and is the umbrella term used in litigation for any digital data subject to preservation, collection, or production in discovery.
ESI covers email, documents, databases, voicemails, instant messages, social media content, cloud storage, audit logs, and any other digital information potentially relevant to a matter. The term is broad on purpose; modern litigation almost always involves ESI in some form.
In Canadian civil procedure, the BC Supreme Court Civil Rules and the Federal Courts Rules both contemplate ESI as a category of discoverable material, with the Sedona Canada Principles providing guidance on proportionality and form of production.
Practical scoping of ESI for a matter usually starts with custodian interviews to identify the data sources each custodian uses, followed by technical scoping with IT to identify the systems, accounts, and retention configurations involved. The result is an ESI map that supports the litigation hold and the eventual collection scope.