WhatsApp and eDiscovery: 3 Legal Cases You Should Know About

Convenient, cheap to use, and a part of everyday life for many of us, it’s no wonder that WhatsApp has found its way into the communication culture of many modern enterprises. While WhatsApp undoubtedly provides a handy and intuitive messaging channel, its use undeniably constitutes part of business records. This means your enterprise is responsible for appropriate preservation – and depending on how heavily regulated and litigated your industry is, lack of accurate recordkeeping can have serious legal repercussions.

A good litigation readiness and eDiscovery strategy, like a good football strategy, is a combination of solid defense and clever offense. If you ignore either one, your ability to win will be compromised.

Americans send an average of 26 billion text messages every single day—with the average person sending 15 texts per day.

Is there a difference between data retention and data preservation? The terms retention and preservation are often treated as synonyms in day-to-day language but they aren’t the same thing.

As with other social media platforms, like Facebook and Instagram, compliance and legal professionals often need to archive a Twitter account for official use.

When it comes to investigating potential insurance fraud, social media platforms can be a tremendously useful resource.

As with other social media platforms, like Facebook and Twitter, organizations often need to archive their official Instagram accounts. In the public sector, this is usually to satisfy FOIA and Open Records recordkeeping requirements, while in the private sector, it is generally in preparation for a regulatory audit or legal matter. One recent example of a lawsuit related to a company’s use of Instagram is that of Teami, which was accused by the FTC of misrepresenting the health benefits of its tea.

With so many people active on social media these days, it’s hardly surprising that posts and comments on platforms like Facebook and Twitter often feature prominently during legal matters. This means that legal professionals have an obligation to protect relevant social media data from spoliation, but the challenges that come with these modern information sources extend far beyond willful destruction of evidence.

There are few better cases that illustrate the risks of social media spoliation than Lester v. Allied Concrete Company.

If you deal with digital information at all, you’ve undoubtedly heard of metadata. But do you know exactly what it is? And do you understand the importance of it as it relates to litigation? To help unpack this often confusing term, we’ve put together the following metadata explanation for your review.