Private organizations are not governed by criminal law per se and usually involve litigation disputes and disciplinary investigations involving computers and network systems, which are becoming more frequent. Civil investigations may escalate and become criminal cases. Civil cases rely on civil law, torts, and process, and information may be recovered from the opposing party through civil remedies, notably, "discovery" as well as powers of search and seizure, such as those provided by Anton Piller orders or search orders.

This book looks primarily at digital forensics and, to some extent, civil investigations. However, in my experience, there is no real distinction between criminal and civil examinations when using digital forensics. Each group is looking for the same sort of evidence but arguably to different standards. The e-discovery is almost entirely a civil matter as it involves disputes between different organizations, so the concept of evidence is slightly different. I contend that the approach used in the past for e-discovery typically involved a large number of machines, and it can be applied to digital forensics with some refinements as the only way to handle large data volumes. Chapter 5, The Need for Enhanced Forensic Tools, outlines some new software tools capable of processing large datasets, offering some long-overdue support to practitioners working in both environments.