Empowering Mobile Data Collection

I spoke with Matthew Rasmussen, the CEO, and Ryan Frye, the Chief Innovation Officer, at ModeOne, a targeted remote smartphone data collection provider. We discussed the risks involved in extracting company data from personal devices, the biggest misconceptions about mobile data collection, and how organizations can ensure their mobile data collection processes align with evolving privacy laws and regulatory requirements.

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Welcome to Reinventing Professionals,a podcast hosted by industry analyst
Ari Kaplan, which shares ideas,guidance, and perspectives from market
leaders shaping the next generationof legal and professional services.
This is Ari Kaplan, and I'm speakingtoday with Matthew Rasmussen

(00:24):
and Ryan Fry, the CEO and ChiefInnovation Officer, respectively,
at ModeOne, a targeted remotesmartphone data collection provider.
Matt, Ryan, great to see you.
You too, Ari.
Thanks for having us,
. Good to see you.
I'm looking forward to this conversation.
So Matt, tell us about yourbackground and the genesis of Mode 1.

(00:45):
Lifelong e discovery guy.
I started on a copy machine backin 2000 and worked through scanning
and e discovery was emerging.
That's where I got my background started.
Majority of my experience hasbeen on the defense law firm
side here in the United States.
Thanks.
Thanks.
Before starting mode one, I washelping run the litigation technology
team over at O'Malvey and Myers outof L. A. And then that's where we

(01:06):
came up with the idea for mode one.
The idea came from an O'Malvey case.
I had a custodian that wascomplaining with me about collecting
over collecting from their phone.
I needed one text.
I had to use a forensics toolto collect the entire phone.
And he figuratively and almostliterally threw the book at me
about how upset he was when I wascollecting everything from his phone.

(01:29):
That's what brought me and my partners,like Ryan, put our heads together to
figure out what is the requirement thatwe collect everything from a phone to
defensively authenticate a text message ora WhatsApp message or something like that.
And so it's been about, 60, 90 days in R&D, just to proof out that was possible.
Cracked the code.
And so we built mode oneto solve that problem.

(01:52):
Ryan, tell us about your backgroundand the risks involved in extracting
company data from personal devices.
So Matt, I grew up in eDiscovery, freshout of school, IT, background, degree.
And spent about 15 years as an expertwitness at a large service provider.
So spun up labs all across the worldon multiple continents, spent time in

(02:16):
the courtroom testifying to the onesand zeros and everything in between.
And as mobile data came to be apredominant source in the space.
I found a specialty there and Mattand I worked on some fun projects
together and we knew we had to beable to build something different.
You asked me about severalrisks that there might be with,

(02:37):
organizations needing to extractcompany data off of personal phones.
And out of the gate, one of thebiggest risks is the privacy invasion.
Of doing that.
Employees are expected to use theirphone for work, but that same device
contains personal text, health records,financial data in private family photos.

(02:59):
So when companies take a full copyof the device, they're not just
getting the work text messages.
They're getting that employeesentire personal life.
And so I think there'sa major liability there.
But definitely a largetrust issue as well.
From what Ryan's saying, thereare like these privacy concerns,
but there's also concerns like thebusiness or the client, because you're.

(03:23):
Producing things through discovery thatshouldn't have been collected, shouldn't
have been assessed, things like that.
Not only that, but the more data youcollect, the more vulnerable it becomes.
So if that full device gets hackedor mishandled, all that personal
and sensitive data will be exposed.
When organizations aren't careful Theycould be holding on to data that they

(03:44):
legally shouldn't have or just openingthe door to compliance violations
or lawsuits because they have waytoo much data under lock and key.
Then of course, speaking of more datathat you collect, you have these storage
costs that come with that as well.
So you could be hoarding terabytes ofdata, much of which is irrelevant, and

(04:05):
that just increases storage costs, butmakes it, Harder and more time consuming
to search through and analyze the datawhen you finally need to look at it.
So I really think targetedcollection solves that problem.
Matt, how has mobile data collectionevolved and what new challenges

(04:26):
do you see emerging in 2025?
The biggest challenges that were startingseeing as early as December of last
year, is the federal government requiringthat phones are involved in all matters.
It's a mandatory data source.
They understand that there's BYODpolicies, there's COD policies.

(04:46):
Everyone's commingling differentchat apps and things like that.
So to go look for typical, Slack, teams,outlook messages, and that's the corpus
of communication records, DOJ, FTC, SEC.
They're all smart enough.
And publicly stating thatthese are now required.
Ryan and I were on thephone in December with DOJ.

(05:07):
And I asked how many cases thatyou are prosecuting have phones?
They said every single onefor every single custodian.
So we're on the federalcompliance regulatory level.
If we look back at any trend that's everhappened in our e discovery technology
ecosphere, that's always where it starts.
Over the next, six, nine, 12 months,those kinds of requirements start

(05:29):
trickling down into civil mattersbetween different law firms Oh, I had
to produce phones to the government.
So now I'm going to demand that thepounds of counsel does the same thing.
So we're going to see a big adoption to.
Rarely being able to be negotiatedaway from and things like that.
And so the challenge that reallydoes present is scale, imagine any

(05:50):
case you've ever worked, you have20 custodians, 30 custodians, you
multiply that times, thousands of casesthat happen in the country a year.
We're talking hundreds ofthousands of custodians a year.
If we have to physically send somebodyto the phone or physically send the
phone to a lab, there's no way toscale and get to that data quickly.
That's going to be a really bigchallenge specifically for corporate

(06:11):
buyers who have a very big legal holdpreservation duty and stuff like that.
Last thing is the FBI in Decemberwas warning the entire country
to stop using green text bubbles.
We've had a few like hacks againstsome mobile providers and those
green text bubbles are 100 percentunencrypted, we could set up a sniffer.
And be taking out your SMStraffic and reading as you're

(06:34):
sending it back and forth.
We can do that today.
So FBI is now tellingeverybody, stop using that.
The challenge that presents is, ifI was a user and constantly texting
now I'm going to go find an encryptedmessaging app like WhatsApp, or Signal,
or Confide, or there's a hundred of them.
Now what was somewhat of a Controlled laneof mobile communication for most users

(06:58):
is now going to proliferate to other appsthat are more encrypted, give that user
more privacy and control over their data.
The challenges that make sure thatwe're staying up to date on those apps.
What are the new apps assessingfor clients, where those
communications are residing.
Those are really the bigchallenges that we're seeing that
we need to start tackling here.
Ryan, how have mode ones technologyand services adapted to accommodate

(07:25):
changing customer and market needs?
We've been laser focused on several areasbased on the customer feedback and just
market trends that we're watching on.
First, we're ensuring customers that usemode one can collect and store data in
compliance with, regional regulations.
Whether that's Europe, Asia,North America, with several

(07:48):
states coming on board,
our infrastructure supports that,secure location specific data
handling, and that's pretty key.
Second operating systems are, constantlychanging, whether it's Apple or Android.
And, we're seeing companies , thatdemand tools that evolve with them.
At Mode 1 we're constantlytesting and developing.
Our tech against those latest updatesfrom Apple and Android so that

(08:11):
our customers never fall behind.
We consistently are able to meet zeroday support on all iOS and Android
updates, finally, we're constantlyadding support for new apps or
new features within existing apps.
The thing Apple came out with not toolong ago, you can schedule when a message
gets sent, so that would be a featurewithin an existing app that we're able
to quickly bring so that our clientsget the right data without a time limit.

(08:35):
Unnecessarily collecting ofany other private content.
Matt, what are the biggest misconceptionsabout mobile data collection?
The biggest misconception is that a fullforensic image of a phone is the only
way to defensively authenticate that data
Always joke that your words with friendsdata didn't authenticate your text
message data, so , why would I need that?

(08:57):
Why do I need your bankinginfo or your photos?
The other is that for most lawyers.
There's a risk thing where maybe theydon't need everything off the phone.
Maybe they don't know whatthey need off the phone.
So just collect it all.
I'm going to figure it outlater, that's a huge problem.
We're over collecting data.
We're over retaining data.
You're storing too much.

(09:17):
You have to process andsearch through that data.
That's been one thing that we'vereally been trying to change
in these misconceptions is takefive minutes with your client.
What apps do you use totalk to your coworkers?
Do you ever text them?
Do they ever text you to clients?
Use WhatsApp, those easy preliminaryquestions allow us to cut through and
find the data we want defensively.
Number one.

(09:38):
Is the fact that a full forensicimage is not the only way
to authenticate that data.
The other thing is, phones historicallyhave had a Expense plus burden argument
if I have a hundred custodians andit's going to cost me four grand a
custodian to go collect their phone.
I don't want to go spend 40G's to collect cell phones.

(09:59):
So I'm going to petition the court tosay, this is a burdensome argument and
there's a cost argument . That's onething that we're really changing into
the system here is it doesn't have to be.
Very expensive.
We don't have to be spendingthousands of dollars on being
able to change that perception.
Those are the two biggestmisconceptions that I'm seeing,

(10:19):
Ryan.
How can organizations ensure theirmobile data collection processes
align with evolving privacy lawsand regulatory requirements?
It's simple.
You must be performinga targeted collection.
The best way to stay compliant isto collect only what's necessary.
Targeted collection is thetruly the only way forward

(10:39):
We need to have clear cut policies onwhich messaging apps are Okay to use
for business communications so thatyou can spot and identify if someone's
using personal whatsapp accounts todiscuss company business that's a
huge blind spot for companies so Andthen it comes with the right tool,

(10:59):
You're going to need toInvest in the right tool.
Manual collections are certainly outdated.
You need tools that cando remote collections.
You need to efficiently extract mobiledata in a targeted way but you need
the right technology that maintainssecurity and defensibility as well.
There's an opportunity to leverageprivacy like a competitive advantage,
companies that prioritize privacyand compliance may not just avoid the

(11:23):
fines but they'll gain the trust withtheir employees, their customers, the
regulators, all of all those groups wantto see businesses handle data responsibly.
Companies that do that willstand out in their . Industry
matt, where do you see mobiledata collection headed?
I see compliance beingthe biggest use case here
financial services, pharmaceuticals,biopharma, all have compliance regulations

(11:46):
from federal or state government oncommunication records are held for
seven years or for legal hold you doan X, Y, and Z. And that's probably the
biggest heading that we're seeing isjust a lot more corporate compliance
usage, a lot more legal ops usage
we're not collecting phonesfor priority custodians.
We're collecting a hundred phonesfor the entire legal hold pool.

(12:07):
But we're also seeing it head in alot of different directions, we talk
about e discovery and litigation a lot.
We talk about compliance a lot, andthat's where I would have thought
a lot of the phone usage would be
.But because there's better technology here, because there's changes in privacy
laws and applications in M& A, laborand employment, trusts and estates work.

(12:29):
It's opening the door to anuntapped, almost market is because
there's new functionalities andfeatures that touch this data type.
We're seeing a lot of differentpractice areas adopt that technology
too, which is really cool.
The last thing is making sure we'restaying ahead is just changes in any
sort of technology that's on your phone.
If WhatsApp updates itself overnightor that emergency patch we have to

(12:51):
be ready to tackle those things.
There's new rules coming into play,and as there's changes in local laws
and , new apps are going to pop up,new ways to hide data or covertly
send data are going to be emerging.
We're going to see some moreof those, maybe a Signal 2.
0 coming out.
This is Ari Kaplan speaking with MatthewRasmussen and Ryan Fry, the CEO and

(13:15):
chief innovation officer respectivelyat ModeOne, a targeted remote
smartphone data collection provider.
Matt, Ryan, great to speak with you both.
Thanks Ari.
Good to see you.
Cheers.
Thank you for listening to theReinventing Professionals podcast.
Visit ReinventingProfessionals.
com or AriKaplanAdvisors.

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com to learn more.