[note class=”info”]”Technology & Law” is a semi-regular column posted by Keith M. Survell. It deals with the interaction of technology and security with the modern law office.[/note]
Another article from Bruce Shneier gives good advice – especially since so many law firms are now using Adobe Acrobat’s PDF format for document storage. If you ever send these documents to other people via email, and you need to hide sensitive information (such as social security numbers), be careful how you go about “hiding” the text. This article describes how someone used the PDF equivalent of “white-out” to redact sensitive information – but the information was still there; it was just hidden under a layer of white.
As computers become more and more commonplace in law firms, and as more and more data is stored in these computers, the issue of data security is going to become more and more prevalent. Many firms have chosen the PDF format for permanent storage of documents – mostly because it can be viewed by anyone (that is to say, a PDF viewer is free and installed on most computers), but also because the PDF format isn’t likely to change in the future. (Word’s “doc” format, for example, has changed many times in its long history – sometimes making it impossible to open older documents in a newer version of Word!)
If it seems silly to be giving this much thought to file formats and digital storage – consider for a moment the effort many firms put into safeguarding their physical files. It is not uncommon to see larger firms equipped with special rooms for files, with special fire-suppression systems and advanced locks to protect the data contained in the files. Now, consider all of those files – the filing cabinets, the folders, and so on – compressed down into a rectangular box about the size of a paperback novel. That’s the data in your computer. That’s why data security is so important.