Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM Feds Warn Companies Not to Delete Slack, Signal Chats
DOJ official Manish Kumar said the Justice Department and the FTC expect companies to "preserve and produce any and all responsive documents, including data from ephemeral messaging applications designed to hide evidence."
January 26, 2024 at 03:58 PM
3 minute read
The original version of this story was published on Corporate Counsel
What You Need to Know
- The FTC and DOJ said companies under investigation will have to turn over instant messages, or face criminal obstruction charges.
- Amazon and Google came under fire last year for deleting chat histories.
- Signal, Slack and Gchat messages always have been considered documents subject to discovery, but companies haven't always properly retained them, the FTC said.
Use Slack or Signal for work? Don't delete your chat history. The Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice said Friday that companies under investigation will have to turn over these messages or face potential civil penalties and criminal obstruction charges.
"These updates to our legal process will ensure that neither opposing counsel nor their clients can feign ignorance when their clients or companies choose to conduct business through ephemeral messages," Manish Kumar, deputy assistant attorney general at the DOJ's antitrust division, said in a statement.
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