Today, social media content is widely used as digital evidence in legal investigations and lawsuits; but with the multifaceted and ever-evolving nature of social media platforms, there are little-known challenges associated with collecting reliable evidence.
What are these challenges, and what are the best-practices for managing them moving forward? How can one gather reliable social media evidence that undeniably meets court expectations?
These are the slides from “Collecting Social Media Records as Digital Evidence” - an exclusive webinar presented by Michael Riedyk, CEO of PageFreezer - the leading tool for social media and website evidence collection.
3. Social Media in Civil Litigation
Employment 32%
Insurance 13%
Tort 13%
Intellectual Property
10%
Contract 8%
Defamation 5%
Bankruptcy 5%
Privacy 5%
Trade secrets 3%
Divorce 3% Discrimination 3%
4. Social Media in Criminal Litigation
Child Exploitation 28%
ID of Witnesses 13%
Online Harassment
11%
Gang related 11%
Fraud 8%
Sexual Assault 9%
Violation of Probation
6%
Drugs 6%
Possession of Firearms
4%
Murder 2% Terrorism 2%
6. Broker dealers & Investment brokers
(2012)
– SEC 17a-4: preserve business records of all
marketing communications for not less than
3 years
– FINRA 10-06/11-39: record keeping,
supervision and responding to social media
posts
Banks & Credit Unions (2013)
– FFIEC, FDIC, NCUA: “Social Media:
Consumer Risk Management Guidance”
Mortgage Brokers (2015)
– Mortgage Acts and Practices (FTC):
preserve copies of all commercial
communications & mortgage advertisement
Financial
Services
Regulatory
Compliance
8. • Federal Records Act (44 U.S.C.
3301 )
– “All books, papers, maps, photographs,
machine readable materials, or other
documentary materials, regardless of
physical form or characteristics…”
• State Open Records laws
– “All state and local government agencies
must retain all web content in accordance
with the approved retention schedules.” -
WA State Preservation of Electronic Public
Records law
Open
Records
Compliance
10. FTC’s Advertising Endorsement
Guides
• Prevent deceptive online advertisement
• Applies to bloggers, social media &
websites that get paid for promoting
products
• Images, video and links to 3rd party
website are considered an endorsement
• Must disclose relationship with
advertiser
https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/plain-language/bus41-dot-
com-disclosures-information-about-online-advertising.pdf
https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/ftcs-
endorsement-guides-what-people-are-asking
Online
Advertisement
Guidelines
11.
12. 1. Archive all your public social media, blogs,
forums, websites daily
2. Collect data in original file format (HTML,
PDF etc.)
3. Collect metadata
4. Sign all data with digital signatures &
timestamps
5. Data must be indexed and full-text
searchable
6. Store data on duplicate media
7. Data must be retained for 3 to 7 years
(depends on industry)
Regulatory
Compliance
Checklist
13. Important
Lawsuits
● Re Vee Vinhnee (2005)
this case identified inadmissibility of mere printouts of
data as authentic evidence, and so the question had to
be asked….how to legally verify a document from the
internet or digital origin?
● Lorraine v Markel Insurance Company
(2007)
this landmark judgment originally discussed, and
verified, the legal necessity of authentication of digital
content when produced in court as digital evidence, in
accordance with Federal Rule of Evidence 901(a).
● United States v. Vayner (2014)
in one of the most recent and relevant cases to the
current stance of social media evidence, the courts
found that printouts of a social media account were
wrongly admitted as evidence without proper
verification and authentication.
14. The problem
with digital
evidence
Data Integrity
– How do you prove that a message has not
been tampered with?
Data Authenticity
– How do you prove the date & time a page
was captured?
– How do you prove from which URL a
snapshot was taken?
Digital Signatures & Timestamps
– Provide data integrity & authenticity for
business transactions
– eSign Act (2000)
15. Why is social
media hard to
collect?
Multifaceted Nature
Can contain images, videos, comments, likes
Real-Time Activity
Content posted, edited or deleted in real-time
Infinite scrolling
Social Media walls can scroll indefinitely
Deeplinked Content
30% of social media messages contain links to 3rd
party website content
Link shorteners
Short links (bit.ly, goog.le) links can change over time
or expire
16. About
Metadata
Client metadata (FROM)
Browser, operating system, IP address, user
Webserver/API endpoint metadata (TO)
URL, HTTP headers, type, date & time of the request and response
Account metadata (WHO)
Account owner, bio, description, location
Message metadata (WHAT, WHEN)
Author, message type, post date & time, versions, links (un-
shortened), location, privacy settings, likes, comments, friends
17. What do
you need?
1. Screenshot in PDF for visual reference
2. Source code (JSON, XML, MHTML)
3. Metadata
4. Digital Signature & Timestamps
5. EDRM – XML to import in eDiscovery
system
18. WebPreserver.com
• Web browser plugin
• Capture single social media profiles
or webpages
• Auto-scroll Facebook timeline
• Auto-expand Facebook comments
• Export to PDF, HTML, metadata,
EDRM-XML
• Digital Signatures & Timestamps
• Full-text Search
• Share online
19. PageFreezer.com
• Collect social media history
• Collect complete websites
• Continuous monitoring
• API metadata
• Export to PDF, HTML, metadata,
EDRM-XML
• Digital Signatures & Timestamps
• Visual Compare
• Full-text Search
• Share online
20. Social Media & Web Collection Service
• We do the work for you
• Complete social media account collection
• Webpage or complete website
• 1 business day turn-around
21. Get the
Whitepaper
“ Social Media & eDiscovery –
Collecting Online Conversations for
Litigation”
http://hello.pagefreezer.com/social-media-archiving
22. PageFreezer Software, Inc.
#500 – 311 Water Street
Vancouver, BC Canada
(888) 916 3999
mike@pagefreezer.com
www.pagefreezer.com
@PageFreezer
Lets
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Hinweis der Redaktion
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