The free tool from UK-based Workshare runs continuous audits of
a user's documents. It claims to identify content that violates
federal regulations, corporate policies or personal privacy and to
alert users before these violations result in fines, adverse
publicity, lost business and lawsuits.
The risks of meta data are known but often neglected. If you
send a Microsoft Word document by email, it generally contains a
lot of hidden information. Much of this meta data is innocuous: the
document title, the date of origin, the file size. But more
sensitive information – corrections, comments and deletions – can
also get locked into meta data.
Unless this information is actively removed it may reach
unintended audiences. The British government made this mistake in
2003 when analysis of the so-called "dodgy dossier" on Iraq,
available as a Word document, revealed the names of four civil
servants who worked on it. Alastair Campbell, then head of Downing
Street communications, had to explain who these people were to the
House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee, which was
investigating the plagiarising document.
Workshare sells a range of document integrity applications
costing from $50–$349 per user but Trace! V2 is a free utility for
Microsoft Office users.
Ken Rutsky, executive vice president of worldwide marketing for
Workshare, said: "Each year, trillions of document are exchanged
electronically. There are serious compliance risks and liabilities
over the exposure of personal private data and other sensitive
information. Trace! V2 eliminates the risk."
Rutsky says the tool automatically tracks and manages known and
hidden content security risks and provide users with a content
security solution that dynamically evolves with new
regulations.
A spokesman told OUT-LAW that the product is not just for small
businesses. "It gets you used to looking behind the document," he
said, adding that it also flags-up any meta data that exists in
documents received from others. And while the free version does not
automatically clean documents, it does give instructions for
removing the meta data.
