BladeLaw is often faced with the question as to how a client can collect evidence for use in a dispute. Hopefully, the following tips will help:

• The key with everything is to make sure the evidence is clear and that no information is lost;

Scanning
• If you are scanning/photographing a document, make sure the camera is looking straight at it, not at an angle and make sure the resolution is not lost when you send it. An easy way to check this is to reopen the file that you are attaching just before, or failing that, just after you have sent it, from within the covering email and see if you can read the document text;
• Also make sure that you scan the whole of a relevant page, so that the context is not lost;
• If the document is made up of lots of pages, it is better to save it as one PDF rather than separate images;
• There are countless scanner apps (mostly free) that can help with this;
• Scanner apps for Android can be found here: https://play.google.com/;
• A scanner app for iPhone is available here: https://apps.apple.com/;

Metadata
• What often gets lost from messages is the metadata. That is the information as to when the message was sent, who by and to whom. Without that information, the messages lose their context and can become meaningless;

Emails
• Emails are easily forwarded and the metadata is normally included automatically. If you cut and paste them, make sure to include the metadata;

WhatsApp
• If you are looking to download WhatsApp messages, there is guidance here for Android: https://faq.whatsapp.com/;

Facebook Messenger
• If you are looking to download Messenger messages, go to https://mesenger.com on a desktop. Click on your profile picture in the bottom left corner of the screen. Click on "privacy and safety" and then "end-to-end encrypted chats" and then "message storage" and then "download secure storage data". You will get a text file in JSON format for each messenger participant;

Android
• If you are trying to export text messages from an Android phone, there are lots of helpful apps like this one: SMS Backup & Restore; and

iPhone
• If you are using an iPhone, you might well find some help here: https://imazing.com/.

None of the above is intended to be IT advice or endorsement of any product or service.