The need for capturing and archiving mobile communication has become more important than ever, especially in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. TeleMessage and International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) Europe jointly hosted a webinar on May 20, 2021, to address the rising need to capture and archive mobile communications in organizations. The webinar was jointly presented by TeleMessage, SBP Law, and Exterro.
Mercedes Brown (Community Manager – Europe, ILTA) organized and moderated the webinar. Guy Levit (CEO, TeleMessage), Donald Macfarlane (Partner and Corporate Commercial Lawyer, SBP Law), and Daren Menzies (International Trainer, Exterro) were the participants of the webinar.
The webinar started with Mercedes Brown’s opening remarks about the webinar, which was followed by the introductory statements of all the participants.
After the introductory remarks, Guy Levit spoke about the need for organizations to capture and archive their employees’ mobile communication. There are around 2 billion monthly active WhatsApp users around the world and almost 100 billion messages are sent through WhatsApp every day.
Even the recent turmoil created by the privacy policy update by WhatsApp has not hindered the growth of this mobile chat application. WhatsApp continues to grow and tries to offer better services so that people are tempted to stay.
WhatsApp is only one example of a mobile instant messaging (IM) application. Messaging solutions differ based on the geographical area. WeChat is a popular substitute for WhatsApp in China. WeChat has replaced almost all modes of communication like calls and emails, and people use it even for their official communication. Line is another mobile messaging application used in Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, and Indonesia. Telegram is also widely used in several countries and Signal is gaining popularity in many parts of the world as it is considered more private.
Shadow IT is a term used by many to denote the communication channels that employees often use without the knowledge of their employers. Several companies acknowledge the fact that they are aware of their employees using non-approved communication channels. But these firms hesitate to address this issue as they do not consider the use of WhatsApp or any other mobile IM applications to pose a threat to their business. But companies should start capturing and archiving their employees’ mobile communication.
The Covid-19 pandemic and the work-from-home culture resulting from it increased the use of mobile communication among employees. But mobile communication without proper archiving measures usually comes at a risk of regulatory non-compliance.
The SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) issued its first-ever fine related solely to text messaging in September last year. In this case, the SEC only mentions text messaging, as text messaging is still the preferred mode of communication in the United States rather than mobile IM applications. The FCA (Financial Conduct Authority) also addressed the issue of mobile communication in business and has acted against firms and individuals for misconduct, which involved the use of WhatsApp. This was the first time that the FCA specifically mentioned the word WhatsApp.
Capturing emails alone is not the solution anymore. The incidents given above demonstrate that mobile communication must also be captured and archived to meet regulatory compliance, and the use of mobile devices in workplaces will continue to grow.
Most firms fear the archiving capability of RegTech tools. The archiving solutions offered by TeleMessage capture and archive all communications automatically, without any user intervention. Hence, a user need not manually press a button to record the conversation, which reduces the risk of being non-compliant. The archived conversations will move to the company’s pre-existing eDiscovery platform, where this platform uses various anti-money laundering solutions and other AI to determine if there is any evidence of misconduct.
TeleMessage’s archiving tools can differentiate between personal messages and corporate messages, by using two different WhatsApp applications or two different phone numbers. Disclaimers will appear on the business WhatsApp account informing the parties that the messages are being captured.
Recently, JPMorgan Chase & Co fired a credit trader for using WhatsApp and cut the bonus payments of a dozen other traders. Two most senior commodities executives at Morgan Stanley had to leave their jobs due to the compliance breaches caused, by the use of WhatsApp. British Petroleum (BP) also fired a few of its employees for using WeChat as a tool for commercial discussions.
It is not possible anymore to restrict employees from using WhatsApp or WeChat, because this is the platform where the clients are present. If traders are unable to communicate with their clients through the client’s preferred channel, then the clients will leave for a firm that suits their requirements. Hence, the only viable solution is to capture mobile text and capture mobile calls and route it to the firm’s eDiscovery platform, so that the traders can use these mobile IM applications in a compliant manner.
TeleMessage captures mobile conversations of regulated employees, either by using an application in their phone, or directly from operators, like a network mobile operator, or Tencent (the Chinese parent company of WeChat) if you are using WeChat. Conversations, which are captured automatically without any user intervention, flow through TeleMessage’s router to our client’s existing platform. These conversations are archived in an easily retrievable format that allows companies to use it for surveillance, or produce it during an eDiscovery request.
Most companies are now trying to centralize their data archive by integrating their voice call archive and mobile IM messages archive with their existing email archive. This allows companies to run all the sophisticated tools at a single point so that it’s easier to find what they are looking for.
Capturing mobile communication is a complicated task. Several mobile messaging applications are in use in business, including WhatsApp, WeChat, Telegram, and Signal. But people still use the traditional voice calls, SMS, and MMS. Companies support BYOD (Bring Your Own Device), CYOD (Choose Your Own Device), and corporate-owned device policies. Different countries will have different network providers. Hence, a single solution will not cater to the archiving needs of multiple communication channels. But at the end of the day, there are specific solutions that can capture conversations from each type of communication channel.
To address the storage issue posed by large voice call files, RegTech firms depend on voice-to-text capabilities. Different dialects used by people from different regions make it difficult for the software to identify the right terms. But as technology is advancing and newer solutions are constantly being generated, a permanent solution for this problem is not far away.
TeleMessage saw a massive increase in mobile communication last year after the outburst of the Covid-19 pandemic. In the first couple of months when employees started to work from home, mobile calls increased significantly each month. SMS traffic increased by two to seven times, WhatsApp users registered with TeleMessage increased by 30% every month, and the volume of WhatsApp messages per archived user increased by 180%.
The practice of using text messages and mobile IM chats for business communication is not going to change as people continually seek out more convenience and have adapted to this change. Another interesting fact is that not only regulated industries, but unregulated industries have also started the practice of archiving mobile communication. Text messages or mobile IM chats regarding business must be treated as corporate knowledge. It is something that belongs to the company and must be retained in the company’s archives. If this information is present only on the employee’s device, the company can access it only until the employee leaves the firm, which is a loss of corporate knowledge for the firm.
The trend of using mobile communication in business will continue to grow and the regulations associated with it will also maintain their stringency. TeleMessage has invested in technology to capture mobile communication effectively and will continue to cater to the needs of the clients, with a friendly comprehensive solution.
Donald Macfarlane shared his views on the importance of archiving mobile communication and addressed the queries that organizations usually have when it comes to archiving mobile communication.
Mobile messaging applications used by people will differ based on countries. While talking about mobile communication, WhatsApp is always referenced due to its ease of usage. People already use WhatsApp in their daily lives and they enjoy it a lot. BYOD policies have allowed personal devices for work, which led to employees using WhatsApp for work. Usually, employers will be unaware of such a practice in most cases and companies wouldn’t want their employees to use WhatsApp for many reasons.
Mobile communication is very easy to use. But the compliance risks associated with it are high. Regulations that govern the use of mobile devices in workplaces have increased, but many companies in the market are still unaware of how to adopt and implement these regulations.
Regulations like the SEC Rule 17a-3 and the SEC Rule 17a-4(f) require companies to preserve all records on WORM (Write Once Read Many) storages. The archived communication must be stored in its actual form with all the relevant metadata, in an easily retrievable format. Then only this archived communication can be used during an eDiscovery or litigation claim. While discussing capturing and archiving mobile communication, many companies are confused about the process. How is it done? How can relevant information be filtered out from a heap of captured mobile chats and calls?
When archiving mobile communication, for example, WhatsApp chats, companies must also consider the volume of information they are capturing. Forwarding the conversations to another form and printing it as a PDF or a physical copy may work on a small scale. But the metadata and context of the messages will be lost. And, when archiving conversations from WhatsApp, where almost 100 billion messages are being sent every day, this is not a practical solution.
Apart from the financial industry, healthcare, energy, and many other sectors require business communication to be archived. Companies have to comply with different sorts of rules and regulations. Hence, there are practical problems that come with archiving mobile communication, like the privacy and confidentiality of the captured data, the marketing perspective of the data, and the accessibility of the data.
Privacy policies in different regions offer individuals a minimum expectation of their privacy. Hence, companies must ensure that personal details are not collected while capturing business communication. While talking about the accessibility of archived data, companies must make sure that the data is archived in a manner, which will not become obsolete.
In terms of using mobile messaging applications for official purposes, people in the Middle East prefer WhatsApp to send signed contracts to banks and lawyers, instead of emails. Financial services, legal firms, and large energy companies are set up with the expectation of using emails for official communication. But the recent trends of using mobile IM apps have forced them to think about a change.
Even if an archiving tool is adopted, employees in the firm must be trained in the usage of the tool. The tool will serve no purpose if employees use a spare phone for the archiving tool and make all their conversations on a different phone. Adopting a tool to archive mobile communication will not completely solve the problem. Proper governance must also be set in place to ensure that employees strictly adhere to the company’s archiving policy.
Companies still report that they do not have the solutions to properly archive communication from all the different channels. Capturing voice calls is one of the major challenges. Since they are captured as mp3 files, these files consume a lot of space in storage. The case is the same when you also have a large number of text messages. If these conversations are not efficiently archived, then law firms and regulators will find it difficult to review these conversations.
People now use their mobile devices for official communication and it will be quite hard to come back to the previous track. Employees in most financial firms have become used to WhatsApp and WeChat for business communication. Now lawyers are also following the trend of using mobile chat apps, as their clients also prefer newer modes of communication. Hence, the only practical solution would be to anticipate future events and archive mobile communication to avoid compliance risks.
As an international trainer for forensics, Darren Menzies has come across queries from companies about analyzing and recovering the data from WhatsApp and other mobile messaging apps. Business communication has moved a long way from emails and mobile SMS, and the current trend is mobile IM applications.
The major challenge when viewing from forensics and training perspectives is that mobile IM communication occurs through mobile phones, tablets, and several other devices, and the kind of mobile chat application used will differ, based on the geographical location. Hence, employees must be educated on the company’s communication policies and the regulatory compliance issues that can occur if an employee ever fails to adhere to these policies.
Extreme care should be taken while performing a forensic analysis on the mobile device of an individual suspected of performing malicious activity. There is a very fine line between the information that the forensic expert is scavenging for and the suspected individual’s personal information. Crossing that boundary will be a lateral intrusion, which can invite severe legal complications.
Training the employees on the company’s archiving policy is very much essential, but these employees will have to be competent also. Organizations must also conduct periodic competency checks on their employees to make sure that the employees strictly follow the practices that were taught in the training.
Markets and technologies are constantly evolving. If one mobile IM application gets shut down or falls out of favor, there will be another one to replace it. This was evident recently as Telegram and Signal gained popularity amidst key competitors like WhatsApp and WeChat. So the lesson learned from this incident is that organizations must keep thinking ahead of the curve and predict future events so that unfavorable events will not make a huge impact.
Click here to register for the TeleMessage and ILTA Europe Webinar on Capturing and Archiving Mobile Communications for Litigation, Regulation, and Governance.
About TeleMessage
TeleMessage captures and retains mobile content, including mobile SMS messages, voice calls, and WhatsApp, and WeChat conversations from corporate or BYOD mobile phones to ensure compliance with various data protection regulations. The messages are securely and reliably retained within TeleMessage servers or forwarded to your choice of archiving data storage vendor.
Our mobile archiving products securely record content from mobile carriers and mobile devices for various ownership models (BYOD, CYOD, and employer-issued). With our multiple archiving solutions, you can always find the right tools or blend for your requirements:
- Network Archiver
- Enterprise Number Archiver
- Android Archiver
- WhatsApp Archiver
- WeChat Archiver
- Signal Archiver
- Telegram Archiver
TeleMessage offers cross-carrier and international mobile text & calls archiving for corporate and BYOD phones. Visit our website at www.telemessage.com to learn more about our mobile archiving products.
