Can Text Messages Be Used in Family Court

It can exist of import to document or print text messages in custody cases or other family police force disputes to bear witness that they were sent, received, or read at a particular time. Show from texts can be critical in custody battles, and is often sought during discovery.

Standards of acceptability for text messages vary around the globe, and even within U.S. states. For example, in Massachusetts, displaying a proper name on text messages isn't plenty to prove their validity without "confirming circumstances" that would "let a reasonable fact-finder to conclude that this evidence is what its proponent claims it to be […and that…] neither expert testimony nor exclusive access is necessary to authenticate the source". As such, information technology'south important to get it right.

Here's What's Important When Printing Text Messages in Custody Cases

Common-sense presentation of letters equally evidence suggests that y'all need to make sure yous have the following:

• A articulate record of time and dates in an unambiguous format, with information on which timezone the messages were in, and whether daylight saving fourth dimension affects some or all of the timestamps
• The date and fourth dimension was received and read, if bachelor (although many messaging systems don't preserve this data, see below)
• Accurate representations of attachments and special characters, such as emoji, drawings, locations and emoji
• Clear details of the bulletin's sender and or recipient(s), not only an alias
• Presented in a tamper-proof style that is hard to alter or fake

This article and the techniques in it apply to anyone involved in a dispute or the mediation of a dispute, such as a divorce, custody battle, or other family law matter.

Nosotros're non lawyers  — and can't give legal advice . Depending on which part of the earth yous're in, the forum you lot plan to employ the print-outs in, and potentially fifty-fifty the judge or arbitrator, the standards of admissibility may differ. Take advice where it'south appropriate.

Options for Preserving a Phone's Bulletin History

Let'south accept a await at the best means to preserve text messages for utilise as proof.

Using Screenshots From a Telephone

The simplest approach is to take a screenshot or photograph of your device displaying the texts. This is pretty simple: on an iPhone you lot'd hold down the home push button and tap the power button, or on an iPhone without a home push button yous'd hold "volume upwardly" and tap the power button. That screenshot can and then be printed or emailed.

Screenshots aren't suitable equally robust forms of evidence. They have many problems:

• They can exist hands faked. A screenshot is simply a picture: anyone tin can depict a motion picture and put some text on it.
• It may accept many screenshots to adequately testify a complete messaging history, and there's no clarity every bit to whether there are gaps betwixt those screenshots.
• Messaging apps don't evidence explicit timezone or daylight saving (DST) information.
• Messaging apps tend to obscure dates. Your phone might say a message was sent "yesterday". That'southward not helpful if you print it out and show it to someone a week later on!
• Messaging apps tend to grouping messages together. If you send several iMessages close together, your iPhone will only show yous when the first one was sent.

Using a Phone or Messaging App to Impress Messages Straight

Likewise as being ineffective, information technology'south surprisingly difficult to print letters directly from almost phones. For instance, an iPhone can't practise information technology. If you pair your iPhone with your Mac through your iCloud account and allow them sync messages, you'll be able to encounter your SMS and iMessage history in the Mac's Messages app. You can read how to utilise Messages here, directly from Apple.

Saving data from the Messages app is less constructive than using a screenshot from an iPhone or iPad: information technology has all of the same drawbacks that screenshots have — and more.

Different bulletin types aren't indicated. For instance, your phone will evidence the departure between SMS, MMS and iMessage by using dissimilar colours, but the Messages app volition show them all as being grey, and won't always include every SMS message in a text conversation.

Printing data from Messages introduces another problem: the date is shown equally "29/12/2018". If that engagement was shown as "v/12/2018", it wouldn't be possible to tell whether it was in European format (fifth December) or US (12th May). Most American users would assume the message was seven months older than it appeared to exist. An unambiguous format to use would exist "2018-12-29".

Print Text Letters From a Phone Network Provider

Some mobile networks provide online tools for viewing message histories from the network's side, merely these are incomplete, at best. Verizon has a "View Texts Messages" service for US subscribers, but it just includes a small amount of information, and doesn't accept attachments, rich media, deletion condition, read time, and it has withal pitfalls with missing and ambiguous dates.

Verizon'south "View Text Letters" Service

The problem with these systems is that they just don't accept the data to provide. They deliver SMS messages, and as such have bones data most them, simply they know zilch almost iMessages, RCS messages (which modern Android devices apply), and they don't know any device-related data, such as read times or support for attachments or embedded data. These network services often struggle with Unicode characters where not-English language languages are used.

That's not to say that this information is useless: it's another proof bespeak to demonstrate that a complete, printed record from some other source  is accurate, and this could be an important aspect in convincing a Estimate or other arbitrator every bit to the accurateness of other information you submit in a dispute.

Using iPhone Fill-in Extractor to Get an Accurate, Forensic Report of Text Messages

Apple's iTunes software is free to all users, and it can be used to quickly create a forensically sound archive of an iPhone's contents. iPhone Backup Extractor can then — with a single click — generate a fully accurate study of bulletin histories from an iPhone or iPod. Not only that, only it supports a wide range of additional messaging apps, such every bit WhatsApp, can recover deleted letters better than specialist forensics tools, and has a gratuitous version available to generate reports from threads with four or fewer messages.

Saving your text bulletin history in a portable, printable format is easy with iPhone Backup Extractor. Download and run information technology. Open up the "Preferences" dialog and make sure "Forensics mode" is checked. It'll testify you lot a summary of the number of messages you have in each of your messaging apps. If yous then click the messaging app's icon, iPhone Backup Extractor will generate a PDF of your message histories — with deleted letters include — in a articulate, incontrovertible format.

What Most Letters in iCloud, Is That Helpful?

No, it'south not. It'southward actually unhelpful from a forensics perspective. First of all, Messages in iCloud volition remove older messages from your device, significant you'll demand to look at several dissimilar services to analyse your bulletin history. It likewise means that your historic letters aren't preserved: they're getting archived and moved abroad to a different service over time.

Ideally, you want to exist able to recover all of your messages from the device itself, and not a deject service, without having to download the messages dorsum to your telephone.

Messages in iCloud adds a further complication, in that it may lead to larger message attachments being archived from your device and stored in the cloud.

Learning More Near Text Letters in Custody Cases and Family Police

For legal advice regarding your divorce case or custody case, y'all need to speak to a family lawyer. In that location are a few resources around online that can be quite helpful for picking up a bit of background and helping yous inquire the right questions, nonetheless.

If you're in a family law dispute, both parties should be aware that wiping a phone or deleting texts ahead of a legal hearing could atomic number 82 to a felony charge in the US . Information technology is besides important to indicate out that attempting to 'hack' or gain admission to a telephone, fifty-fifty if it belongs to a spouse or ex-partner, may fall foul of Federal wiretapping laws.

A version of this article originally appeared hither .

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Aidan founded Reincubate in 2008 after building the globe's first iPhone data recovery tool, iPhone Backup Extractor. His work has been cited in over 20 academic papers on forensics and mobile information, including "Overcoming Forensic Implications with Enhancing Security in iOS" (Gangula, MR, 2019), and "Directly Message Extraction for Automatic Emotional Inference and Drug Detection" (Fong, Grand, 2019). world wide web.reincubate.com

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Source: https://www.divorcemag.com/articles/what-you-should-know-about-text-messages-in-custody-cases

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