Discovery of mobile devices includes several metadata considerations with mobile device ESI, as this blog post from Cimplifi discusses!

In their post titled Going Mobile: Metadata Considerations with Mobile Device ESI (available here), Cimplifi discusses the metadata that can be used to authenticate evidence, to determine whether the data has been tampered with or not, and to provide additional probative information about that evidence.

One notable example of metadata that can provide useful evidence in discovery is EXIF (Exchangeable Image File Format) data, which is a type of metadata embedded within image files, such as JPEG, which is automatically generated by digital cameras and smartphones. EXIF data provides detailed information about the image, the device used to capture it, and the settings and conditions at the time of capture.

One type of EXIF data is GPS information, which (as you probably know) can be used to determine the location of someone when the picture was taken. I say “probably”, because when John McAfee – the millionaire software executive who created McAfee anti-virus software was on the run after being suspected in a murder, the publication Vice published a story about him while he was a fugitive that included a photo of McAfee and Vice editor-in-chief Rocco Castoro taken with an iPhone 4S. None of them realized until after the story was published that GPS data identified their location in Guatemala. Whoops.

The GPS location is so precise, that it further identified them as being located “along the Rio Dulce in the Parque Nacional Rio Dulce. Near the Ranchon Mary restaurant. By a swimming pool”! Wow!

So, what are other examples of how metadata can be used as evidence? Find out here, it’s only one click! Why are forensic examiners like Will Rogers? Because they never “metadata” they didn’t like! 😀

So, what do you think? What metadata considerations with mobile device ESI are most important to your organization? Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Image created using GPT-4’s Image Creator Powered by DALL-E, using the term “robot conducting a web search on a smartphone”.

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