Re: [office-metadata] Legal metadata

[robert_weir@us.ibm.com]

Perhaps we can help in this area.  There
is a very real concern in some quarters with "hidden" data beyond
what the author intentional put into the document.   This might be
a good criterion for metadata in ODF, that it be easily identifiable as
such, and amenable to automatic removal.  In other words, we should
do metadata in such a way that a tool of modest sophistication can remove
all metadata from a document without knowing in advance what ontologies
were being used.

I'll add this to the Wiki.

-Rob

Patrick Durusau <patrick@durusau.net> wrote
on 05/06/2006 01:17:38 PM:

> Friends,
> 
> While looking for more information on legal metadata use cases I ran
> across the following. It is "on topic" but strictly for
your amusement. 
> And yes, I did check the source and the article appears to be an 
> official Florida Bar News article from *January, 2006.*
> 
> *****
> 
> *FLORIDA BAR BAFFLED AND UPSET BY METADATA* . . . According to the
> /Florida Bar News/ 
> <http://www.floridabar.org/DIVCOM/JN/jnnews01.
> nsf/8c9f13012b96736985256aa900624829/c3f75b4e10e94f78852570e50051b23e?
> OpenDocument>, 
> the Florida Bar's Board of Governors wants to ban the practice of
> looking at metadata in electronic documents. Said one board member,
“I 
> have no doubt that anyone who receives a document and mines it . .
. is 
> unethical, unprofessional, and un-everything else."
> 
> At its latest meeting, the board voted unanimously for a motion stating
> that lawyers should not look at metadata. The board also referred
the 
> following two questions to the Professional Ethics Committee of the
> Florida Bar:
> 
>     The first is whether it is unethical for a lawyer to
mine metadata
>     from an electronic document he or she receives from
another party.
>     The second is whether an attorney has an affirmative
duty to take
>     reasonable precautions to ensure that sensitive metadata
is removed
>     from an electronic document before it is transmitted.
> 
> According to the article, several of the Florida board members hadn't
> heard the word "metadata" until the meeting in which they
swiftly voted 
> to take action against it. For more background on lawyers and metadata,
> see my recent posts at the /Illinois Trial Practice Weblog/, "Electronic
> Discovery: 'Metadata' Becomes a Sexy Word 
> <http://www.illinoistrialpractice.com/2005/11/electronic_disc.html>,"
> and "Avoid Embarrassment: Learn About the Metadata You're Creating
> <http://www.illinoistrialpractice.com/2005/12/avoid_embarrass.html>."
> 
> Thanks to a reader for the link.
> *****
> From: http://www.legalunderground.com/2006/01/florida_bar_baf.html
>