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Yesterday, the American Bar Association gave the green light for lawyers to view metadata (extraneous information in a file such as who created it, what changes have been made, etc.).  . 

Lawyers who receive electronic documents are free to look for and use information hidden in metadata –  information embedded in electronically produced documents –  even if the documents were provided by an opposing lawyer, according to a new ethics opinion from the American Bar Association.

The opinion is contrary to the view of some legal ethics authorities, which have found it ethically impermissible as a matter of honesty for lawyers to search documents they receive from other lawyers for metadata or to use what they find, according to the ABA Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility. 

Link here (via beSpacific).

You can also see go to my previous posting on metadata, which included a link to the free Remove Hidden Data tool.

Alex Eckelberry