The role of metadata in the American system of law and justice hasn’t always been clear. Mondaq brought this news to us in their article, “United States: The Argument For Metadata As A Matter Of Procedural Due Process.”
Due process has substantive procedural components, and, at its core, is the thread of fundamental fairness that allows our judicial system to stand as an example for the world.
With the widespread proliferation of technology in our personal and professional lives, due process protections secured by the U.S. Constitution which entitle defendants to access the evidence to be used against them take on new challenges. In the modern technological age, there can be more to the evidence than initially meets the eye.
The seemingly simple constitutional requirement that defendants be provided the evidence to be used against them can be an entirely different scenario when that evidence has metadata hidden within.
Metadata is what makes electronically stored evidence three dimensional. Metadata is also what makes electronically stored information so powerful.
It makes one wonder: had the type of digital evidence that exists today existed at the time of our nation’s founding, what would due process look like?
Melody K. Smith
Sponsored by Access Innovations, the world leader in thesaurus, ontology, and taxonomy creation and metadata application.
