Archive for the ‘Forensic’ Category

Fundamental rights and Information technologies

Friday, July 9th, 2010

In a small article published on  The Gazette’s website, titled The delicate issue of law and technology, the undersigned comments a recent decision in criminal law by the Quebec’s Court of appeal .

Two main issues are identified. The first one: how should the plain-view doctrine be construed in the case of electronic documents search and seizures ? The second: how should we mediate, one one hand, the right of an accused not to be compelled to participate in self-incrimination, with, on the other hand, the arrival of ever more powerful and efficient cryptographic tools that can be used to conceal incriminating evidence?

If one can’t answer these questions, he may at least try to formulate them!

Compliance vs. Hard drives in printers, photocopiers and scanners

Thursday, May 13th, 2010

Here is a news report that explains well something we have been telling our clients for a while now. Multifunction machines, scanners, printers, photocopiers, etc. contain hard drives which capture ALL documents that run through them, unless you take action!

This means that any confidential (personal information, privileged material, commercial and industrial secrets, etc.)  information contained on the documents you print, copy or scan on a daily basis are retained on the hard drive contained in the machine unless it is wiped or set not to record images. That means, in many cases, you and/or your organisation are violating different statutes and regulations every day… As explained in this news report, this situation is exacerbated when you decommission these machines and give or sell them to third parties who, in turn, send them abroad to be reused or recycled: