ASX-One Australia managing director, David Thompson, said Australia needs a federal approach to document retention and monitoring of electronic documents, particularly e-mail, which is regarded as the worst offender.

"With states continuing to introduce their own legislation, it will become a nightmare for national companies to be compliant," he said.

Victoria is set to introduce the Document Destruction Bill which makes it a criminal offense to intentionally destroy documents to prevent evidence being used in court, while NSW has introduced the Workplace Surveillance Act.

"These are both new, state-based laws, which is why we need a national approach," he said adding most companies don't even have e-mail retention policies.

While some e-mails do have to be legally retained, Thompson said back-ups don't always work.