If I don't see it, does it mean it's not there? Metadata–ethics, technology and more
As much information and entertainment as the Internet may provide and as beneficial as we find e-mail and word processing, the world of technology is wrought with potential pitfalls.
Metadata—data about data—is one possible source of distress. Many electronic documents contain information beyond the printable page, such as the author’s identity, the number of revisions made and even comments and redlining revealed with a few quick strokes on the keyboard. Users may unintentionally share things that they didn't expect to.
As Catherine Sanders Reach, director of the ABA Legal Technology Resource Center, outlines in her presentation, “Dangerous Curves Ahead: The Crossroads of Ethics and Technology,” metadata is coming to the forefront as technology proliferates. Because the Model Rules of Professional Conduct “do not contain any specific prohibition against a lawyer’ s reviewing and using embedded information in electronic documents, whether received from opposing counsel, an adverse party, or an agent of an adverse party,” metadata has become the basis of several ethics opinions by states and the ABA. View ABA ethics opinion 06-442, for example.
What can be viewed via metadata, according to Reach, include author name, the date document was created and modified, as well as comments and redlining that were made within the document. Software is available that can remove metadata; such programs include Payne’s Metadata Assistant, SoftWise: Out-of-Sight and Workshare: Workshare Protect, just to name three.
When working with electronic documents, ways to ensure protection include using passwords to open and edit, sharing a document either through the pdf format or via MS Office 2003 Information Rights Management, and through the use of encryption.
To view the presentation as presented to the Arkansas Bar Midyear Meeting in January 2008, click here.
