How to Work With Privileged Material

We’re supporting examiners by helping them adhere to privilege material workflows, reducing the risk of inadvertent exposure or misuse of privileged material, by giving them an option to tag or exclude artifact evidence from case data during processing based on a keyword list.  

This can be helpful where a manual review process is utilized to remove the content, or in scenarios where it must automatically be excluded.

This new feature can also help enhance the overall efficiency and accuracy of an investigation. By streamlining the handling of material, examiners can focus more on analyzing and interpreting the data, leading to faster and more accurate results.

See this new feature in action in the video below:

Helping to Ensure Proper Handling of Privileged Material

In digital forensics, privileged material refers to sensitive data that requires special handling and protection to ensure its confidentiality and integrity. This can include privileged communications between attorneys and clients, medical records, and other confidential information. It is critical to maintain the chain of custody and ensure that this privileged material is protected throughout the forensic investigation.

Law Enforcement Application

More agencies are dealing with the challenges associated with client/attorney privilege and digital evidence. “Tainted Material” can jeopardize or introduce significant delay cases where suspects can claim their digital devices contain privileged material. 

To ensure the proper handling of privileged material, digital forensics investigators must follow strict protocols and workflows. This includes identifying privileged material early in the investigation, isolating it from non-privileged data, and using appropriate tools and techniques to protect it. This is where having tools like AXIOM that can support privileged material workflow becomes crucial.

Corporate – eDiscovery Applications

In many eDiscovery cases, there will be set parameters around what evidence can be included in the scope of the investigations. With the privileged materials workflow in AXIOM Cyber, a broad search for potentially privileged materials can be conducted using a set of keywords. Artifacts related to these privileged keywords will then be automatically tagged for further review, or even excluded from the Artifact Explorer.

This feature helps to expedite the identification and review of privileged materials and helps ensure a more accurate and efficient process.

To try the privileged materials workflow for yourself, update to the latest version of AXIOM or AXIOM Cyber either in-product or within the Customer Portal.