How long does Verizon store text messages?
chall1023
Newbie

I work at a law firm and recently came across an intriguing case. When going through documents, I discovered that the suspects' text messages had been reproduced - times, numbers, and even content - and the information was extremely incriminating.

 

I am not sure when these documents were subpoenaed and obtained, but it made me curious...how long is the period where Verizon can keep all of this information?

 

I have been conducting research on the topic...many people say Verizon stores content for 10 days (and can be reproduced upon subpoena), but then after that only the general information can be reviewed. Others say it all can be found whenever with the proper research.

 

Pertaining to the specific case documents, messages spanning a total of 3 days (the days surrounding the incident) were reproduced. I can only guess that if it was possible to obtain texts from before that time, those past messages could further incriminate the suspects...but is it possible to retrieve texts from more than 10 days ago? I read that in other cases, text messages including content up to a couple years old have been reproduced. 

 

Realistically speaking, millions of text messages are sent each day - so how would the server be able to store that many text messages with their content?

 

Seems like a lot of questions, sorry. Just really intrigued by the extent of our current technology. 

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Re: How long does Verizon store text messages?
bosslady85
Specialist - Level 1

Any usage within the 10 day time frame can be subpoenaed.

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Re: How long does Verizon store text messages?
TheGreatOne
Master - Level 1

Verizon keeps text messages on file for 10 days or 240 hours. Once this period has occured the messages are deleted from our system and are no longer available.

 

(Taken from Zrock02 here)

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Re: How long does Verizon store text messages?
chall1023
Newbie

Thank you!!!

 

What I concluded is that the phone information (with text message content) that we have came from the police department...when they conducted interviews, they asked for their phones and obtained the content, pictures, etc. that way. We also have logs from AT&T with information starting a few months prior to the incident; this information, however, is solely limited to who sent, who received, when, type of data, etc - NO content. I'm assuming that those are the logs that can be subpoenaed after the alloted amount of time, say, 10 days.

 

Does that sound correct?

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Re: How long does Verizon store text messages?
bosslady85
Specialist - Level 1

Any usage within the 10 day time frame can be subpoenaed.

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Re: How long does Verizon store text messages?
jpseidel
Newbie

I just got off the phone with their legal department, a notarized must be filled out and they can keep up them up to 90 days.

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