Two-and-a-half years ago, I concluded a post with this bluster:
“Listen, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and all the other companies collecting vast volumes of our data through intelligent agents, apps and social networking sites, you must afford us a ready means to see and repatriate our data. It’s not enough to let us grab snatches via an unwieldy item-by-item interface. We have legal duties to meet, and if you wish to be partners in our digital lives, you must afford us reasonable means by which we can comply with the law when we anticipate litigation or respond to discovery. You owe us that. Alexa, are you listening?”
Amazon hasn’t listened; but, Apple lately gave users the ability to download our data. Credit for this awakening goes to the European Union’s Global Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) that went into effect on May 25.
Data takeout capabilities are essential to protecting civil liberties and meeting legal duties. Google’s given users a simple, effective means to repatriate data (including Gmail and calendar data) for five years, although search histories have only been supplied for two. Twitter’s supported robust data takeout for five years; and eight years ago, Facebook became the first big social media site to offer its users the ability to download contributed content.
Apple is late to the party but it didn’t come empty-handed. The Apple takeout is extensive and can be huge. My download comprised 63GB in 26 compressed Zip archive files. It took Apple five days to assemble the data and make it available for download; then, I had to download each file, one-by-one. There’s no way to download them all, leaving the distinct impression that Apple doesn’t want takeout to be too easy. In fairness, had I opted to have Apple deliver my data in 25GB chunks (the largest chunk option) instead of the 5GB file limit I specified, it would have been easier.
In my case, almost all the volume were photos replicated in iCloud. Notably absent was my messaging, which Apple can’t archive and thus can only be obtained from the iPhone or a backup of same (see my post Mobile to the Mainstream). Continue reading
The Texan in me can’t hear the phrase “on the road again” without also hearing Willie Nelson’s nasal voice singing it. But, the life I love IS making music with my friends, if by “music” we mean bringing “aha” moments to lawyers and others interested in e-discovery and forensic technology.
Two years ago, I 
Houston is my hometown. I wasn’t born there (though both my children were); but, I got there as quickly as I could, at age 17 to study at Rice University. I practiced law in Houston and kept a home in the Houston area for 38 years, longer by far than anywhere else. I have deep Texas roots, proud Houston roots. So, it pains me to see what’s happening in Harris County, and as a past President of the Houston Trial Lawyers Asociation, I’m thinking of all my colleagues whose offices are submerged or inaccessible and whose practices will be devastated and disrupted by Hurricane Harvey.
This article makes the case for routine, scalable preservation of potentially-relevant iPhone and iPad data by requiring custodians back up their devices using iTunes (a free Apple program that runs on PCs and Macs), then compress the backup for in situ preservation or collection.
Cybersecurity and personal privacy are real and compelling concerns. Whether we know it or not, virtually everyone has been victimized by data breach. Lawyers are tempting targets to hackers because, lawyers and law firms hold petabytes of sensitive and confidential data. Lawyers bear this heady responsibility despite being far behind the curve of information technology and arrogant in dismissing their need to be more technically astute. Cloaked in privilege and the arcana of law, litigators have proven obstinate when it comes to adapting discovery practice to changing times and threats, rendering them easy prey for hackers and data thieves.
Two characteristics that distinguish successful trial lawyers are preparation and strategy.
“Will the person who left their cell phone at the security checkpoint please retrieve it?” People constantly leave their phones behind at security checkpoints, washrooms, checkout counters and charge stations. Too, the little buggers slip out of pockets and purses. More than three million phones are lost in the U.S. every year, and less than one-in-ten lost phones finds its way home. Saturday night, I found an iPhone on the floor at a big party in the Faubourg Marigny in New Orleans. I located the owner by asking everyone in sight if they’d lost a phone, and when I found her, the owner didn’t know she’d dropped it.
