Patent ID: 8224924

Claim:
A method for network enterprise-wide collecting of active electronic mail (email) data associated with a custodian in an electronic discovery system, the method comprising: identifying an email mailbox identifier associated with the custodian; accessing, by a computing device processor, an email mailbox associated with the custodian based on the email mailbox identifier; based on accessing the email mailbox, determining, by a computing device processor, whether a location of the email mailbox is eligible for automated collection determining, wherein determining includes determining whether international privacy laws would be violated if the data is automatically copied and transferred from a network device determined to be located in a first country to a long-term storage device determined to be located in a second country; if the location is eligible for automated collection, copying the active email data from the email mailbox; transmitting, by a computing device processor, the copied active email data to a staging area; determining, by a computing device processor, whether the copying and transmitting of the active email data is complete; and if the copying and transmitting is determined to be complete, storing the active email data in a long-term storage device.