The Privacy High-Wire Act: Balancing Discovery and Compliance
Data privacy regulations are fundamentally reshaping how businesses operate worldwide. Companies face an unprecedented balancing act between regulatory compliance and operational efficiency.
Legal discovery processes have grown increasingly complex as they keep pace with new privacy laws emerging across states and countries. The stakes are high, and missteps can lead to substantial financial penalties and protracted legal battles. ModeOne is witnessing growing demand for solutions that address these compliance challenges without compromising privacy protections.
From GDPR to States’ Rules
The era when the European Union’s GDPR stood alone as the primary privacy concern has ended. There is an emerging patchwork of state-level regulations across the United States, each with distinct compliance requirements and enforcement mechanisms.
For example, Maryland’s Online Data Protection Act (MODPA) takes effect October 1, 2025. The legislation restricts organizations to collecting only “reasonably necessary” data and strengthens consumer rights regarding personal information control. The Connecticut Data Privacy Act (CTDPA), which grants consumers expanded rights to opt out of data sales and maintain greater autonomy over how their information is already live. Meanwhile, the Texas Data Privacy and Security Act has established stricter consumer protections and created penalties for businesses failing to implement adequate data security measures.
Industry analysts note these regulations converge around two central principles: minimizing data collection to what’s essential, and mandating transparency in data usage practices. For businesses, the consequences of non-compliance include substantial financial penalties, reputational damage, and potentially costly litigation.
Data Hoarders Beware: When More Is Less
Legal experts identify data over-collection as one of the most significant risks in the discovery process. Organizations that gather and retain excessive information face heightened regulatory scrutiny and increase their vulnerability to inadvertent disclosure of sensitive materials.
Technology solutions from ModeOne address this vulnerability. Unlike traditional methods that capture entire smartphone contents—sweeping up vast amounts of unnecessary information—ModeOne targets only legally required data. This precision-focused approach simultaneously reduces compliance risk and enhances privacy protection.
Whose Smartphone Is It Anyway? The BYOD Tightrope Walk
Workplace Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policies present another complex compliance challenge for organizations. Employee resistance to corporate monitoring has intensified, particularly in jurisdictions like California, where transparency laws mandate detailed disclosure of all data collection activities. Corporate legal departments now seek solutions that can extract necessary business information while respecting personal privacy boundaries.
ModeOne addresses these tensions because our approach excludes personal smartphone content, such as photos, location tracking data, and private communications. We also allow employees to maintain possession and use of their smartphones throughout data collection. Our approach establishes trust between employers and employees in increasingly complex digital workplace environments.
ModeOne’s Targeted, Remote Smartphone Data Collection
ModeOne collects targeted data within the scope of a matter. A client typically provides a forensic technician information about a data custodian’s smartphone and how he/she uses it for business activities. The technician considers this information and the requirements of a matter, defined by counsel, to establish appropriate parameters for the scope of the smartphone collection.
ModeOne’s SaaS solution for remote smartphone data collection enables the technician to define the date ranges and data sources relevant to each matter. The ModeOne framework gains remote access to the smartphone only after receiving the custodian’s advance permission, locates the relevant data stored on the phone, and securely transfers it to ModeOne’s cloud storage on Amazon Web Services (AWS), where it is encrypted and stored. The client can then search and review relevant messages in a threaded format – similar to what we experience on our smartphones – using ModeOne’s web-based user interface and download selected messages in a format compatible with any eDiscovery review platform.
ModeOne protects custodians’ privacy rights to their smartphone data by accessing and transferring only the data authorized by the client. It provides a collection inventory summary to review the specific details of the data collected, including individual file size and number of messages, threads, and photos.
ModeOne’s proven smartphone collection process adheres to the guidelines of privacy frameworks by using only the data required and relevant to a specific matter. It encrypts the data in transit and at rest in the cloud. It uses multiple layers of security to monitor, detect, and defend against possible malicious activity and unauthorized access to stored data. The company also deploys an additional security incident and event monitoring solution.
Technology selection has become a critical decision point for legal and compliance teams navigating the increasingly complex regulatory landscape.
Ready to transform your smartphone data collection strategy? Let ModeOne show you how to turn compliance challenges into opportunities. Contact us to learn more.