Uploading Files Negates Privilege

Uploading files to an unprotected file-sharing site is the equivalent of “leaving its claims file on a bench in the public square and telling its counsel where they could find it,” according to a federal magistrate judge. Therefore, the judge concluded, an insurance company that uploaded files to DropBox waived any claim of privilege to those materials. “It is hard to imagine an act that would be more contrary to protecting the confidentiality of information than to post that information to the world wide web,” U.S. Magistrate Judge Pamela Meade Sargent wrote. The ABA BNA Lawyers’ Manual on Professional Conduct cites the case in advising that “lawyers think twice before putting confidential documents in a file-sharing site without password protection.”