In this increasingly electronic age, married people share lots of electronic data, from bank accounts and email addresses to social media and online shopping accounts. When they split, suddenly there is a scramble to prevent the soon-to-be former spouse from accessing information that they do not want them to see.

A recent New York Times article highlighted the drama going on about the role of electronic data in the messy and embarrassing split between Clinton aide Huma Abedin and her husband, disgraced former Congressman and NYC mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner. After Weiner’s latest sexting scandal, Ms. Abedin announced that she would be filing for divorce. To complicate matters, there was also a federal investigation of the electronic data, which belonged to both Weiner and Abedin.

Although it is unlikely that your and your spouse’s electronic data is subject to federal investigation, your personal data footprint reveals volumes about who you are, who you know and what kinds of activities you are involved in, both online and offline. Even when you are confident that you have nothing to hide, a lot of personal information about you can be obtained quite easily by accessing your electronic data.

If you are planning to get a divorce, or if your spouse just served divorce papers on you, here are a few steps you must take to preserve your data privacy in divorce, thanks to Techlicious.com:

• Download your content from any shared online accounts
• End the shared phone plan
• Change your phone’s password
• Deactivate the shared email account (but don’t delete the emails in it!)
• Open a new account in your name with a new password
• Stay away from social media – even when the comments are positive
• Create new passwords for all your accounts
• Manage access to your location-sharing apps
• Do a security deep clean for surveillance apps (verify whether your partner might be spying on your phone)

Additional recommendations from the Times article include making sure that when you change your email password, you also change the security questions that you must answer if you forget your password. If your spouse hits the “forgot password” link, and can easily answer the challenge questions, they can still get into your account. Do not use answers they might know such as the name of the street where you were born, or your mother’s maiden name.

You must also bear in mind that there are laws against what is known as the “spoliation” of evidence, and there can be severe sanctions if you delete any stored electronic data whether it is in email form, text message, or content on a social media account. You may “deactivate” your Facebook account, for example, but you may not delete it or delete any of its content.

Planning to get divorced? If you have questions about the divorce process in Tennessee, you are welcome to have a consultation with a knowledgeable Nashville divorce attorney who will listen to you and offer legal advice about the facts of your case. Please call 615-391-4200 or use our contact form to reserve your consultation with the trusted legal team at Miller Upshaw Family Law, PLLC.