Paralegal Power Breaks are short information packed sessions that provide useful career information to paralegals at all career levels. It is important to understand why metadata is so important for legal professionals. Metadata reveals a lot about what you do and how you do it. Data is at the heart of eDiscovery and data forensics. This data is more than tangible work product like documents, pictures, and emails.

1. PARALEGAL
POWER BREAK
What You Need to Know About Metadata

2. TYPES OF DIGITAL EVIDENCE
▪ Types of digital evidence includes:
▪ DVDs, audiotapes, phone SIM cards, memory sticks, and more
▪ Almost anything - even a refrigerator - can contain digital evidence
▪ Data: actual information being retrieved, such as a letter or document
▪ Metadata: information about the data
▪ Metadata in a picture file can tell investigators the type of camera used, date of
photo, and GPS coordinates where the photo was taken
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3. E-Discovery:An
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Figure 1-2 Data and metadata

4. TYPES OF DIGITAL EVIDENCE
▪ To access a photo’s metadata:
▪ Open Windows Explorer
▪ Right-click the photo file and click Properties
▪ Click the Details tab
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Figure 1-3 Photo metadata in the
Properties dialog box

5. TYPES OF DIGITAL EVIDENCE
▪ Metadata is also available for documents
▪ An investigator can see how long the person had the document open,
how many words and characters are in the document, and more
▪ Metadata has to be handled carefully
▪ Recent court cases have cited or fined companies for deleting
metadata
▪ However, including metadata showing who worked on a
particular file might violate other standards
▪ Such as privacy regulations and copyright infringement
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6. OVERVIEW OF METADATA IN E-
DISCOVERY
▪ Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard (METS) - the standard
used for objects in a digital library
▪ Developed by the Digital Library Association and maintained by the Library of
Congress
▪ METS profiles are found in:
▪ PDF files
▪ Photographs
▪ CDs
▪ Other digital records
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7. OVERVIEW OF METADATA IN E-
DISCOVERY
▪ METS has five categories for metadata:
▪ Descriptive metadata - lists metadata embedded in the document or
external descriptive metadata stored on an Internet server
▪ Administrative metadata - describes how a document was created and
stored, the original source object, and intellectual property rights
▪ File groups - groups electronic versions of a file, such as TIF versions,
PDF versions, etc
▪ Structural map - shows users how to navigate all files
▪ Behavior - deals with any executable portions of documents
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8. OVERVIEW OF METADATA IN E-
DISCOVERY
▪ OS metadata is what is stored by computer and network operating
systems
▪ A typical OS keeps track of a file’s MAC times
▪ Show when the data was modified, accessed, and created
▪ Both an OS and NOS can show investigators the last time a file was accessed and
whose login was used to modify a file
▪ In civil cases
▪ Only the metadata embedded in documents is captured (not the OS or NOS
metadata)
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9. OVERVIEW OF METADATA IN E-
DISCOVERY
▪ Metadata is used mainly for organizing the discovery process
▪ Content of documents and e-mails is more important than the metadata
▪ Deleted information might be deemed “not readily accessible” or too
costly to retrieve
▪ It is most likely not produced
▪ What’s used in e-discovery is metadata embedded in documents
▪ Which stores information such as author and application used to create it
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10. CONTACT US
www.rainmakersonline.com
info@rainmakersonline.com
800-580-6068
To learn more about eDiscovery purchase the text eDiscovery: An Introduction to Digital Evidence from Cengage Learning