Any practicing attorney who uses a computer has probably heard the dreaded word "metadata" -- but what exactly is this mysterious information? Equally important, how should it be handled? Failure to adequately capture and preserve metadata associated with electronic discovery materials has been considered spoliation of evidence and grounds for significant discovery sanctions. Conversely, a failure to erase metadata from outgoing law firm correspondence can inadvertently communicate a wealth of inappropriate information to recipients. This article reviews how metadata is created, its purpose, and situations where metadata can assume significant importance."

What is metadata?

When most people think about an electronic document or an e-mail message, they define the file by the content that has been intentionally created by the document's author—e.g., our typing. However, to function more efficiently, virtually all computer programs automatically track additional information that relates to a document, usually storing it at the beginning or end of the file, where it can easily be found by the program. This information is generically known as "metadata."

When a file is attached to an e-mail message or copied from one location to another, much of its associated metadata is also transferred with the file. Some metadata, however, will automatically update to reflect the new location of the file. As a result, computer files that appear identical when printed out may have different metadata.

Many different forms of metadata exist, and each program tracks metadata that is appropriate for the particular data files it creates. Most word processing programs available today, for example, identify and record at least the following information:

·         Name of the user logged into the computer

·         The number of characters and words in the document

·         How often and for how long the document has been edited

·         Revisions that have been made to the document.

E-mail programs like Microsoft Outlook can associate e-mail messages with literally hundreds of pieces of metadata information, such as folders where messages are stored, whether messages were forwarded, and whether recipients opened a mail message that they were sent.  Many of these metadata fields, however, remain empty unless certain actions take place; in most cases, the majority of possible metadata fields are actually empty.

In addition to metadata information that is written into a data file by word processing (or spreadsheet or e-mail) software, a computer's operating system also tracks information about the files stored where they can be accessed. This data includes:

• Document size;
• Date and time the document was last saved and last accessed;
• Location where the document has been stored; and
• Which users have rights to access the document.