Archived FAQ – December 2011

In O’Neill v. City of Shoreline, the Supreme Court held that the City of Shoreline had to produce the “metadata” from an email sent to a city councilmember’s personal email address and stored on her personal computer.

1. What is metadata?

Metadata is often defined as “data about data,” or more specifically information that describes the content, quality, condition, origin or other characteristics of data or other pieces of electronic information. It is automatically generated, updated and removed by computers. It can be stored on computers or embedded in electronic records.

Conceptually, metadata is like the DNA of electronic records because metadata is the tool computers and computer systems use for three tasks: (1) to translate zeros and ones into something we can see on a computer screen; (2) to manage electronic data; and (3) to record the history of how both of those processes occurred.