from looking at metadata (to answer a question Dennis Kennedy discusses here).
Apparently, the Florida Bar's Board of Governors wants to make it unethical for lawyers to look at metadata, for example authors' names contained in Word files.
There is a problem with metadata. Many users don't know that it is there. For example, BSA lobbyist Mingorance had his authorship of the first Commission draft for the software patent Directive project exposed over metadata.
I think there is a good case for all of this metadata being illegal under European data protection standards. I have discussed a similar question already two years ago in my paper on "DRM and Data Protection" on page 17. I think this is "personal data" under the 1995 data protection Directive. Therefore, anyone adding metadata like the name of the author to a document would need to have a window pop up and ask for express consent for this treacherous behavior, instead of just attaching the data to the document without the user's knowledge.
However, I don't think that once the metadata is out there, lawyers should be ethically restricted from looking at it. This data should not be recorded in the first place without consent and knowledge of the author. Restricting later use is a half-baked measure that does not solve the problem, since lots of other parties might still be able to get the information.
Posted by Karl-Friedrich Lenz at January 4, 2006 07:05 PM