Hearsay is a remote evidence collection platform built for legal use. It allows attorneys, investigators, and individuals to collect, review, and export text messages, without screenshots. Whether you're part of a legal team managing collections or an individual collecting your own messages, this article covers everything you need to know to get started.
What is Hearsay
Hearsay helps users collect and preserve digital message data for use in court.
All collections are completed remotely through a secure, web-based process that maintains data integrity and chain of custody.
Hearsay supports message collection from:
Text messages: SMS, MMS, iMessage, and RCS
Messaging apps: WhatsApp
Social media DMs: Facebook, Instagram, Threads and more
Email
All exported data is hashed for authenticity and includes full metadata, timestamps, and deletion reporting.
Who Uses Hearsay and Why
Hearsay is used in cases where message evidence is involved in a legal matter. With the custodian's permission, Hearsay can securely and defensibly collect data directly from the data source.
Hearsay is used by:
Legal professionals: Attorneys, paralegals, and investigators managing client communications and collecting evidence
Custodians: Individuals who receive an extraction code from their legal team and upload messages from their own devices
Self-represented individuals (pro se): People gathering and submitting their own message evidence directly
Investigators: Professionals that perform remote and on-site data collection.
Compliance: Teams responsible for collecting and archiving off-channel communications for regulatory or internal purposes.
How the Collection Process Works
A typical collection follows these steps:
A legal team (or individual) creates an account and generates an extraction code.
Download the Hearsay Extractor to a computer, enter the code, and connect the phone.
Plan for the collection to take at least 1 hour, though it may be faster or slower depending on your hardware and the amount of data on the device.
Once complete, the custodian selects message threads to upload (Manual Search & Share), or data matching pre-configured criteria is uploaded automatically (Pre-defined Search & Share).
Hearsay processes the data and makes it available for review and export in the legal team's or account holder's portal.
All uploaded data is searchable, timestamped, and exportable in multiple formats suitable for litigation.
The steps above describe phone data collection using the Hearsay Extractor. For email collection, custodians use the Email Collector — a separate web-based interface. See How to create an email collection request for details.
Next Steps
To get started with your first collection, see: