Fighting Fraud with Metadata

It’s probably accurate to say that most adjusters and examiners have handled dubious property insurance claims. Questions frequently arise as to the true cause of losses, the extent of the alleged loss, the insured’s representations during the investigation as to ownership, and the documentation submitted in support of the claims.

Claims adjusters and examiners routinely request proof of ownership or purchase in the form of receipts or pho-tographs of the property now claimed to have been lost or stolen. Policies of all types require an insured to provide information or evidence in accordance with the policy’s general conditions, sometimes called the cooperation clause or “Your duties after loss.”

Bogus receipts or invoices have been created or fabricated by some individuals. They may have obtained blank receipts from office supply stores or actual blank receipts from retail outlets. In other in-stances, actual receipts were modified by whiting out, cutting and pasting information, dates and prices. The fraudulent receipt usually over-stated the value or cost of the item or the date of purchase was changed. Falsified receipts were then photocopied and submitted as proof of purchase or acquisition. If Polaroid photos were submitted, it was possible to determine that an instant photo was taken after the date of loss because the manufacture date was imprinted on the back. Then computers were used to create bogus receipts with computer programs such as Adobe Photoshop or similar software.

In the last decade, a myriad of digital devices including cell phones and smart phones, cameras and even digital audio devices have come onto the market. These devices record dates, times, conditions, settings, locations and more. The recorded data is called metadata and can be very helpful in the investigation of suspicious claims and suspected insurance fraud.

Merriam-Webster.com defines metadata as “data about data.” Metadata represents a wide range of digital content embedded in files which includes the following: how or by what means the data was created or originated (phone, camera, audio or video recordings, etc.); the purpose of the data; date and time of creation; the cre-ator or author; location of the data on a computer or network; and the standards used in its creation.

Metadata can be created by many de-vices in numerous formats which include photography, audio and video recordings, and telecommunications. The usual standard format is JPEG which means Joint Photographic Experts Group. The file extension is .jpg or .jpeg. There are many other image formats, but this discussion will focus on digital photos (JPEG files) in the EXIF format (Exchangeable Image File Format).