Systems and methods for policy enforcement in electronic evidence management

A system for policy enforcement on electronic evidence captured from at least one source, comprising:

• means for indexing the contents of the captured electronic evidence;
• means for classifying the captured electronic evidence based on the indexed contents by associating the electronic evidence with one or more classes;
• means for determining whether one or more policies apply to the classified captured electronic evidence;
• when two or more policies apply to the classified captured electronic evidence, means for resolving a conflict between the two or more policies to select the one or more policies to enforce;
• and
• means for enforcing the selected one or more policies on the classified captured evidence.

A computer readable medium comprising software that, when executed by a computer, causes an electronic evidence management system to perform a method for policy enforcement on electronic evidence captured from at least one source, the method comprising:

• indexing the contents of the captured electronic evidence;
• classifying the captured electronic evidence based on the indexed contents by associating the electronic evidence with one or more classes;
• determining whether one or more policies apply to the classified captured electronic evidence;
• when two or more policies apply to the classified captured electronic evidence, resolving a conflict between the two or more policies to select the one or more policies to enforce;
• and
• enforcing the selected one or more policies on the classified captured evidence.