Tech Execs Dodge Specter of Voice-Mail Risk - ' How Do You Search '

Enterprises can archive voice messages with periodic "data dumps," says Sulkin. But he noted this is "not traditionally done."

"That could be a problem," says Sulkin. "Most voice-mail systems are stand-alone and usually there are limits to the voice-mail-box storage capacity per subscriber. Unless you're going to continually swap out memory and add more memory, it could be an issue."

Storing voice messages as digital audio files can become unwieldy because "you need a lot more storage space for voice than for e-mail," he noted. "With voice, it would require massive amounts of storage."

The 800-pound gorilla, however, is retrieval. Although modern voice-mail systems stamp messages with dates, times and other information, most voice mails—unlike e-mails—don't come with "subject" sections.

So a search for smoking-gun voice messages, be they sought by Uncle Sam or by legal adversaries, might require a human to sit and listen through reams of "Bring home a pizza," "I'm returning your phone call" and "I'm taking a sick day" messages before finding anything worthwhile.

Don't look to technology to ease the pain. Nothing compares to the old-fashioned method.

Even ScanSoft Inc., which bills itself as the world leader in voice-recognition software, says technology hasn't quite reached the point where reams of stored voice-mail recordings can be reliably searched by computers.

"Our AudioMining technology could be used as a core technology to build an application such as what you describe, but to my knowledge that application layer does not exist today," according to company spokeswoman Erica Hill.

In an e-mail interview, telecom consultant Martin Parker, retired from industry giant Avaya Inc., says Avaya makes no such application either. "But we are linking up with suppliers who do this for call centers and want to link up with Avaya to store voice messages," Parker promises.

Throw into the mix other annoying questions, and it might be apparent why companies don't want to handle this hot potato: Should they also ask employees to preserve any work-related cell phone messages? What about work-related messages left on home answering machines?

"It's a tricky topic," says Eddie Schwartz, chief technology officer for Securevision LLC, a security and privacy consultancy in northern Virginia. "But I can tell you I work with people, and I've worked in places where there are, in fact, policies and practices in place."

For the introduction, see Part I of this story:
Voice Mail May Be the Next Legal Minefield.

For Part II, click:
Voice Mail Poses Threat, but Gets No Respect.