"Stumble In The Jungle" and the Perils of Digital Data Collection

In a bizarre reversal of the plot of the Hunger Games, we may soon be witnessing two of the richest men in the world engaging in a cage fight, in what could be the highest grossing pay-per-view event in history. 

Fights in the professional world are rare (white-collar boxing and similar excepted), and not something that people ever expect. But this news got me thinking about how digital forensics professionals sometimes find themselves in contentious, and even physically threatening, situations in the work that we do.

Electronic data collections can be fraught affairs – often subjects have no idea what's about to happen (as in the case of search and seize or dawn raid operations), and it can be incredibly stressful to answer the door to a team of people who are there to capture data that may incriminate you in wrongdoing. In my work in this field, I have been in situations where I have had mobile phones thrown at me, and once had a subject call a group of friends to drive over and intimidate our team during a collection. Thankfully, these situations are rare and not typically indicative of the work that we do today.

Still, I find it interesting to think what motivates people to act in this way. An obvious reason is that they are worried about what is contained in the data, and whether it could be used against them. Another common assumption that upsets people is that when imaging phones for example, we would also be collecting personal data. This does sometimes happen when generating a full forensic image of a device, however, it's important to note that digital forensic professionals have no interest in looking at personal and private information. We only look for data relevant to the matter. Pictures of a subject’s children and cats will not be identified in our work.

So, what can be done to better prepare for these kind of contentious situations? Certainly, if you feel that there is a chance that the individuals involved may become violent, then inform your solicitors, who will then brief the supervising solicitor to help handle the situation. Our teams are trained to handle situations calmly, practically and professionally. We're there to do a job, and make every effort to reassure subjects of what's happening. 

Failing that, you can always join your local dojo...

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FTI Consulting, Inc., including its subsidiaries and affiliates, is a consulting firm and is not a certified public accounting firm or a law firm.