Presented by Jill Joline Myers, Western Illinois University and Leaunda S. Hemphill, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Educational examples of metadata:

• ID3 tags in MP3s
• Word document authorship information
• Revision history in wikis, Word
• Page view/access date/time 

Patterns in metadata are highly indicitative of an individual--e.g. telephone calling patterns are largely identical for a person, even if the person changes phone numbers.

Metadata is usually automatically generated by the application.

Delete does not necessarily mean gone.

Types of metadata:

• Substantive (types of content changes made)
• System-based (info created by the user)
• Embedded (appears in files, like graphics, links, etc.)

Exposure of metadata may violate confidentiality.

Several examples of the risks associated with metadata, namely in the realm of crime, e.g. a photo sent out via Twitter from a smartphone which included precise lat/long of where the pic was taken, making predators aware of the precise location of a potential target.

"The benefits of metadata far outweigh the risks of metadata.  However, we must become educated about metadata and ensure any risk-inducing metadata is not shared publicly.