A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Metadata Tags

The Harris County Law Library's Legal Tech Institute offers Hands-on Legal Tech Training every Thursday at 2:00 pm. Our most popular class, MS Word for Legal Work, provides an overview of basic, intermediate, and advanced features in Microsoft Word. Some of these features are familiar to regular users of the Microsoft Office Suite, but one of the tasks, which we demonstrate in the Go Pro section of our presentation, often takes people by surprise. That task is Document Inspection and specifically the removal of metadata, a critical step before sharing a legal document with another party. The metadata consists of all the hidden information attached to or found within your document. It may expose details that you don't wish to reveal to another party, including the date, time, and author of a document, the names of everyone who has made revisions or comments to the document, and potentially even alternate versions of the content. Stripping this data may be very important, and doing so is easy. Simply click on File, open the Info menu, and locate the Inspect Document button. There you will find options for quickly and easily removing the hidden details and protecting the confidentiality of your work. 

Microsoft makes it easy to identify and remove metadata from documents, spreadsheets, and other work products created with applications in the MS Office Suite, but what about other types of files, including image files? Photographs taken with your cell phone or digital camera contain hidden data as well, including the identity of the device used to take the photo, the date and time when the photo was taken, and the GPS coordinates that identify the exact geographic location where the photo was snapped. 

If you'd like to find the metadata tags associated with a particular image, there's an app for that. EXIFViewer and Photo Investigator are two free apps for the iPhone, and similar apps are available for Android devices. Take a look at the screenshots below to see examples of the kinds of data you might discover, along with the options provided for either removing or editing the EXIF data or for captioning your photos. Depending on the app, you can also share a photo with or without the EXIF data attached. Keep in mind that not all images will be tagged with GPS coordinates, one of the potentially key pieces of evidence you may wish to identify, but when geographic data does exist, it may be just the information you need to pinpoint a person or event at a specific site. Have a look:

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Photo Investigator: Date/Time

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Photo Investigator: Map data

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ExifViewer Lite: Date/Time

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ExifViewer Lite: GPS data

If you doubt the usefulness of this information, consider the story of John McAfee, developer of the popular McAfee antivirus software. McAfee, who had left the United States to spend his retirement years (and his sizable fortune) in Belize, became a person of interest in a bizarre crime, the murder of his neighbor and fellow expatriate, Gregory Faull. In an effort to evade authorities, McAfee escaped to Guatemala where reporters from Vice.com caught up with him. The reporters snapped a photo of Mr. McAfee and published it on their website but failed to strip the geodata. This oversight lead to his eventual arrest and deportation back to the United States after political asylum in Guatemala was denied.

Your next case may not involve an eccentric billionaire on the lam in Central America, but the outcome might still depend on  your ability to find the EXIF data embedded in a key photograph. Caution your client, whether fugitive or philanderer, about the data's potential to expose his or her behavior, and then prepare an effective defense for his or her whereabouts at a specific point in time. Look for an app that shows you these potential "smoking guns" and put your new tech knowledge to work!

Tech Bytes: Technology Tips for Texas Lawyers

The State Bar of Texas Computer and Technology Section worked with TexasBarCLE to create a series of short videos on tech-related topics. The program, called Tech Bytes, launched just one year ago in the spring of 2017. Already, there are more than 40 videos available, and the collection is growing.

The videos focus on technology's role in the legal profession and its application to the practice of law, with a special emphasis on tech tools and trends that impact legal ethics and current Rules. Topics vary from simple (redaction) to sophisticated (cybersecurity) and from the everyday (legal apps) to the esoteric (EXIF data). There is something for everyone no matter your level of tech knowledge. Even the most cyber-savvy lawyers will learn something useful. In each 4-7 minute video, explore a new topic. Cloud computing, data encryption, metadata, forensics, electronic data preservation, ransomware, and the ethics of social media are just a few.   

Whether you're simply curious about trends in legal tech and want to keep abreast of the benefits and risks of using technology in the practice of law, or you're interested in earning CLE credit through self-study, the State Bar of Texas Computer and Technology Section has a Tech Byte video for you!

Legal Tech Institute Legal Tech Collection

The Harris County Law Library's Legal Tech Collection is a growing library of print resources, located at the Reference Desk, that address tech topics relevant to to the practice of law. Books in the collection include several titles in the "One Hour" series. iPad in One Hour for Lawyers, Facebook in One Hour for Lawyers, and LinkedIn in One Hour for Lawyers, are just a few of the available titles. Other books in the collection focus on encryption, digital privacy, e-discovery, social media, Adobe Acrobat, and how to use Google more effectively for legal research. 

One of the featured books in the collection is an updated edition of a popular publication from the ABA Law Practice Division -- The Solo and Small Firm Legal Technology Guide: Critical Decisions Made Simple. The Law Library recently acquired the 11th edition (published in 2018), which, surprisingly, is a much slimmer volume than the 2016 edition that it will replace. At just under 200 pages, the 2018 edition is nonetheless chock full of useful content for any solo and small firm practitioners in need of guidance in selecting the best technology options for more efficient and effective legal work.

In the introduction to The 2018 Solo and Small Firm Legal Technology Guide, the authors explain that this year's edition is more narrowly focused on the core technologies of the law office. It is therefore more condensed and compact. Readers requested a book that presents just the essentials of law office technology, making it easier to use and to read. This feedback from readers demonstrates an important point -- that even the most tech savvy users of legal tech tools still like to consult print resources for guidance.

Our interactions with Law Library patrons certainly show a high demand for traditional books in print, which in turn motivated our decision to create a legal tech collection of print materials There are of course many excellent online resources including legal tech blogs, how-to videos on YouTube, recommendations via social media from colleagues and fellow users, vendor websites, and so much more, but many times a compact, single-volume handbook is just what a new tech user needs to get acquainted with an unfamiliar resource. In addition to our print resources, we link to several other useful digital legal tech resources via our Legal Tech Institute web pages, and, when consulted in tandem with our print resources, these online digital sources are also excellent tools for gaining a toehold in the sometimes overwhelming world of legal tech. 

Digital Divides and Justice Gaps

A recent study by the Pew Research Center suggests that 11% of Americans don't use the internet. 11%! For those of us who spend our days talking about ways to more effectively use digital resources, 11% is a staggering statistic. At the Harris County Law Library, we're on the internet every day. Pulling a case in Westlaw or Lexis requires connectivity. Assisting self-represented litigants (SRLs) access TexasLawHelp.org for forms and information does too. Access to many forms of legal information is either bolstered by internet access or, in some instances, totally dependent on it.

Legal aid organizations across the country are also on the internet every day leveraging technology to close justice gaps. In Texas, we have a variety of success stories. TexasLawHelp.org counts thousands of page hits each month and offers chat services to SRLs across the state. Houston Volunteer Lawyers and Lone Star Legal Aid share information and leverage automated intake forms on their websites. The Houston Bar Association and Texas State Law Library distribute legal information to SRLs on the most needed topics, including family and consumer law.

Can you see where this is going? What happens when our efforts to offer legal aid and share legal information are focused on a medium that the intended recipients either cannot or do not access? Diving further into the Pew report, we see the problem is exacerbated. The digital divide is concentrated in vulnerable populations that legal aid services are intended to help. Specifically,

• 35% of Seniors (65+),
• 19% of those earning less than $30k per year, and
• 35% of individuals without a high school education

do not use the internet. Building on these base statistics, if 19% of those living in poverty do not use the internet at all, how many of the remaining 81% have had the opportunity to develop the skill set to use it well?

Ok, enough doom and gloom. What do we do? Answer: remember that public law libraries are partners in access to justice. If the issue is lack of access to equipment, libraries offer public access computers. If it's digital literacy, we offer reference assistance and free learning opportunities. If information literacy is the issue, we help patrons every day wade through nonsense Google results to find authoritative resources like TexasLawHelp.org. And all of these resources are available for free to all at locations across the country.

For more information on the role of public law libraries in access to justice, take a look at the following resources:

• Report: Law Libraries and Access to Justice. A Special Report of the American Association of Law Libraries Access to Justice Special Committee (AALL 2014)
• Partnering with Libraries, Center on Court Access to Justice for All
• Report of the Texas Commission to Expand Texas Legal Services (Dec. 6, 2016)

Access Digital Resources Remotely from the Texas State Law Library

It's National Library Week (April 8-14), and the Harris County Law Library is celebrating! We're tipping our hat to the Texas State Law Library in Austin whose digital resources are available to residents throughout the state free of charge! 

To enroll in Texas State Law Library's  "Research from Home" program, simply sign up for a library card on the Law Library's website. (New users will be authenticated using geolocation to confirm Texas residency.) 

Library accounts obtained via the TSLL online patron registration form will grant you access from home to selected library databases and the TSLL digital collection of more than 500 e-books and practice guides. (Some e-books are restricted and can only be checked out from home by government employees. The restricted titles are the Texas Litigation Guide, the Texas Transaction Guide, Collier on Bankruptcy, and Moore's Federal Practice.) Access to these resources will be permitted for a period of 6 months, with the option to re-enroll on the TSLL library card renewal page.

Join us celebrating National Library Week by registering for your Texas State Law Library remote access library card today!