Matthew Houle

For more than 13 years, Matt has collected and analyzed thousands of laptops, desktops, servers, mobile devices, and social media profiles in support of civil and criminal litigation and internal investigative matters. He has received extensive training in digital forensics, e-discovery, evidence handling, and computer investigations.

Prior to joining Ankura, Matt was a senior digital forensics analyst for the Department of State, Office of Inspector General.

Matt’s professional experience includes:

• Major Global Advertising Company: Managed and led international collection efforts of laptops, mobile devices, WhatsApp data, and cloud-based email/document storage for 25 C-suite level custodians totaling 20 terabytes of data. Led second request efforts to recollect devices in a shortened timeframe, meeting all deadlines set in place by the Department of Justice (DOJ). Created and implemented a remote solution to collecting chat-based data from mobile devices remotely with multiple custodians in various time zones.
• Multinational Alcoholic Beverages Company: Managed and led forensic and e-discovery support on five projects for client. Forensically preserved data from multiple laptops, mobile devices, and email accounts through O365 and Box.com. Created multiple standard operating procedures for internal preservation challenges and collection procedures across all projects. Helped client comply with GDPR collections to ensure privacy of collected data. Actively developed specific collection strategies to work around the internal limitations created by client IT department.
• Global Social Media Platform: Led custodian interviews of multiple employees, assisting internal counsel on targeted collections and special data sets. Performed multiple collections of laptops and mobile devices, providing findings reports to internal counsel. Created defensible SOPs for self-collections for internal counsel used in additional collections.
• Global Healthcare Service Provider: Managed and led forensic preservation efforts for a diverse array of data sources including but not limited to Office 365 Email, OneDrive, Teams, Chatter data, Sharepoint sites, laptops, mobile devices, Confluence, Dropbox, and other unstructured data sources for 100 custodians in complex second request issued by DOJ. Developed and implemented multiple preservation strategies for new data sources allowing for the collected data to be processed and loaded for review. Managed multiple refresh collections totaling over 30 terabytes of data collected throughout duration of case.
• Major Global Mobile Phone Carrier: Led collection efforts of laptops and mobile devices of over 20 C-suite level custodians. Generated and provided forensic reports for mobile devices to Kroll Discovery for litigation. Answered and assisted in second request efforts to recollect devices in a shortened timeframe, meeting all deadlines set in place by the Department of Justice (DOJ). Created and implemented a solution to work around complex security measures to obtain Whatsapp data from the CEO’s mobile device.
• Global Medical Device Company: Led collection efforts of domestic and international employees’ laptops and mobile devices. Helped client understand GDPR compliance and developed strategy allowing the proper collection/review of client data abroad by implementing custom custodian interviews, identifying relevant data. Provided onsite collection and analysis of devices left by prior employees and generated reports listing relevant findings.
• United States vs. Kathleen McGrade and Brian Collinsworth: Collected and analyzed over 100 unique evidence items over a span of two years for a contract fraud case. Maintained chain of custody for each item and tracked each movement throughout the entire cases life cycle. Served as lead analyst on case and participated in multiple search warrants across the U.S. Provided e-discovery and litigation support to multiple Assistant United States Attorneys (AUSA) in developing a search platform to review millions of documents in a short time period. Results from search methodology led to a conviction where the subject was found guilty of defrauding $60 million from the U.S. government.
• Keystone XL Pipeline Permit Process Special Review: Congressional request in which over 20 devices were collected, analyzed, and processed in a two-day time span. Specifically taught multiple special attorneys/special agents in the targeted review process, which produced findings that were presented to congress during the permit review process.