"If a critical mass of society actually adopts this technology,  the revolution will come when the judiciary (and all of us) are forced to cope with a tsunami of duties to preserve this electronically stored information..."

Google glass will impact ediscovery in two ways. The first is evolutionary: there is no doubt that courts will deem non-privileged, relevant electronically stored information (ESI) on these devices as a discoverable type of e-data. The basic application of this inevitable ruling is pretty clear—videos and pictures stored or shared from the device will be discoverable.

But Google Glass is supposed to go further—it’s supposed make it as easy as possible to live, capture and share everyday life—whether that means speaking to send a message, getting a flight status without having to ask, or live-streaming your daughters dance recital. It’s not hard to imagine how this information—just like geographic metadata on a tweet or Facebook post—could be necessary in some types of cases. If a critical mass of society actually adopts this technology,  the revolution will come when the judiciary (and all of us) are forced to cope with a tsunami of duties to preserve this ESI, along with the ever-present threat of back-end spoliation sanctions that will follow. Who knows, maybe it will be really revolutionary, and stir a frenzy of data protection and privacy lawmaking similar to what’s playing out across the Atlantic right now.

Welcome to a world of glass!

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[Michele Lange is an attorney, writer, marketer and e-discovery thought leader at Kroll Ontrack. Connect with Michele on Twitter.

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