The rules of legal discovery in the Internet and e-mail era are rapidly developing for civil litigation. But in the realm of criminal investigations—where the stakes can be far higher—the law still leaves corporations flailing without any way to protect electronic data, even if it belongs to innocent third parties.

Jaclyn Jaeger is a freelance contributor to Compliance Week after working for the company for 15 years. She writes on a wide variety of topics, including ethics and compliance, risk management, legal,...