When you receive a draft Microsoft Word contract document from a counterparty have you ever bothered to look in the properties or statistics section to see what information has been recorded? Ever played with the various checkboxes in the Track Change/Highlight Changes screen in Word? Ever checked for hidden track change edits before emailing documents? Do you know that, in some situations, historical track changes can be innocently hidden and revealed by simply changing the checkbox options?
Apart from text and graphics, all file or document creation software whether it be Microsoft or Adobe stores additional document information within the file itself. This information can include the name of the author, date of creation, date/time of last modification, local or network folder path, time spent editing the document, etc. These are commonly known as metadata.
Metadata is a double edged sword – it’s tremendously helpful for internal corporate document management tools but this same information that is stored is always targeted by forensic auditors or in e-discovery matters when the metadata can be used as evidence to test claims relying on documentary evidence or integrity.
Likewise in a MS-Word .DOC or .PDF document, residual metadata or obsolete track change edits can often reveal information that can be commercially compromising.
The document management software installed and used in most large law firms have in-built prompts to strip metadata prior to emailing externally, however smaller practitioners and in-house departments are often not as technically savvy or vigilant.
MS Word does have built-in features to check and remove metadata, if you’re a PC user – the Document Inspector application is the one you need; if you’re a Mac user – you need to check the Security icon in the Preferences option on the Word drop down menu.
Adobe Acrobat has an Examine Document feature which contains a Sanitize Document function that will perform a variety of metadata checks and removals. Its worthwhile having Adobe Acrobat installed to take advantage of this feature, especially for .PDF documents that will be made publicly available via email or a website.
Track change edits and inserted comments can also sometimes be inadvertently hidden and later revealed to unintended readers. So it pays to check MS Word options to make sure that track change edits are enabled to highlight changes onscreen and on printouts to look for any revision text or comments that are not intended for outside parties to see…
