Cybersecurity Law & Strategy publishes an Article By Veritext CTO Tony Donofrio: “Depositions and Legal Proceedings in the Remote World”

Now that depositions and other legal proceedings are now virtual, remote exercises in most cases. It doesn’t mean, however, that the rules have relaxed. If anything, it’s more important than ever to follow best practices and pay attention to security.

Day-to-day work isn’t the only thing that’s gone virtual in the legal world in the past year. While lawyers may have stopped going into offices, legal cases have continued on. Thankfully, all you need is a device with an Internet connection, a webcam and an audio connection to handle even complex legal proceedings from your home office.

Now that depositions and other legal proceedings are now virtual, remote exercises in most cases. It doesn’t mean, however, that the rules have relaxed. If anything, it’s more important than ever to follow best practices and pay attention to security.

Here are some of the most important things attorneys need to know about conducting depositions and legal proceedings in a remote world.

Ensuring Confidentiality and Privacy
Once video communications became ubiquitous, so did the concern of unwanted guests infiltrating private meetings — indeed the early days of work-from-home were rife with stories of Zoombombing that made many tech providers and users of the technology ratchet up their security measures.

What we’ve learned is that security is not about the platform, but about how the platform is configured and how remote proceedings are conducted. Whether you are hosting legal proceedings on Zoom or any of the other major platforms, you will need to ensure they are configured and managed in a way that ensures the confidentiality and privacy of both the meeting and the content being produced, such as transcripts, exhibits and audiovisual recordings.

The best providers configure their tools and technology to ensure the confidentiality of the proceeding and the content being produced with the following considerations:

• Access Control. Only authorized participants are provided access to the proceeding, with the best practice being individual identification and authentication through user IDs and passwords. In addition, the facilitator of the meeting, usually the court reporter or a concierge service, must admit participants from a “waiting room” after ensuring they are appropriate parties.