Collecting Social Media Records as Digital Evidence

Michael RiedijkPageFreezer.com

Social Media in Civil Litigation

Employment 32%

Insurance 13%

Tort 13%

Intellectual Property 11%

Contract 8%

Defamation 5%

Bankruptcy 5%

Privacy 5%

Trade secrets 3%

Divorce 3% Discrimination 3%

Social Media in Criminal Litigation

Child Exploitation 28%

ID of Witnesses 13%

Online Harassment 11%Gang related 11%

Fraud 9%

Sexual Assault 9%

Violation of Proba-tion 6%

Drugs 6%

Possession of Firearms 4%

Murder 2% Terrorism 2%

Confidential

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 ServicesRegulatoryCompliance

Learn more: https://www.pagefreezer.com/financial-services/

• 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

Learn more: http://www.pagefreezer.com/government/

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

OnlineAdvertisementGuidelines

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)

RegulatoryComplianceChecklist

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.

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)

Why is social media hard to collect?

Multifaceted NatureCan contain images, videos, comments, likes

Real-Time ActivityContent posted, edited or deleted in real-time

Infinite scrollingSocial Media walls can scroll indefinitely

Deeplinked Content30% of social media messages contain links to 3rd party website content

Link shortenersShort links (bit.ly, goog.le) links can change over time or expire

AboutMetadata

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

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

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

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

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

Get the Whitepaper

“ Social Media & eDiscovery – Collecting Online Conversations for Litigation”

http://hello.pagefreezer.com/social-media-archiving

PageFreezer Software, Inc.#500 – 311 Water StreetVancouver, BC Canada(888) 916 3999

mike@pagefreezer.comwww.pagefreezer.com@PageFreezer

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