Patent ID: 8239352

Claim:
A method for configuring a safety-tag that indicates whether a private data area is safe to preserve, the method comprising: determining whether a private data area of an electronic file is safe to preserve, wherein the same electronic file includes another data area in addition to the private data area, wherein the private data area includes private data written by an application or system, and wherein the electronic file is manipulatable by another application or system that understands data in said another data area and does not understand the private data; wherein said determining whether the private data area is safe to preserve comprises determining whether the private data area could be corrupted when preserved; and if the private data area is safe to preserve, configuring a safety-tag to indicate that the private data area is safe to preserve; otherwise, if the private data area is not safe to preserve, configuring the safety-tag to indicate that the private data is not safe to preserve; wherein the safety-tag is specific to said private data area and not to said another data area of the same electronic file.