Have you been asked this question before? Have you ever been asked about your metadata and if you could find and present it? If you have, it is likely due to a discovery request, especially if you are in Arizona. That’s right, according to a recent Associated Press (AP) article written by Paul Davenport titled “Ariz. court rules records law covers metadata’’ the Supreme Court ruled that under Arizona’s public records law, the hidden data embedded in electronic records must be disclosed. In this case Justice Scott Bales cites that withholding the information embedded in electronic records is contrary to the openness of the public records law but also states that providing the metadata should not create a burden on the public entity.
There are similar discussions and awaited rulings in other states as well. The Washington State Supreme Court has a case before it regarding email metadata even though the Washington specifically says that metadata is subject to disclosure. The exception to all of this appears to be metadata that may be of a private nature or considered sensitive materials.
In my view, this is further evidence of the need for stronger and better defined processes and policies to govern our information. Not only should organizations decide the type of content that has value and a need to be retained, they must also make decisions on the value and relevance of metadata to capture with the knowledge that all of this information is subject to disclosure. The mindset should be one of existence. If it exists, it is discoverable and as such should be treated as any other record regardless of format. The requirement is real, how it is addressed makes the difference in defensibility.
What say you? How do you manage metadata? Do you have a story to tell? I want to hear from you and learn what you and your organization are doing.
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Interesting article to say! I have worked on discovery requests where meta data is quite important. To have it made available for public disclosure, it will be a daunting task. Especially if litigation is related to local and county governments where there are laws to make public information available, yet very limited budgets.
Posted by: Dhiren Patel | November 11, 2009 at 12:40 PM