Depending on the case specifics, your attorney (or the opposing party) may request to immediately preserve your cell phone. Especially for an automobile accident where there may be a claim of distracted driving or speeding, a forensic analysis may need to be completed right away. The faster they do so, the lower the risk of losing valuable data. Although not very common, there may be unintentional or intentional mishandling of the cell phone data from the opposing party. This leads to critical information being destroyed or possibly altered to make their situation look better. The phone must also be isolated from overall network connectivity. If the device receives any kind of new information, the other data from the accident could end up being written over or corrupted. As time passes, data synchronization may kick out or contaminate older data to replace it with new information. Many different kinds of applications, especially those that track location by GPS, can alter or delete data that could be crucial to a case. Depending on the type of cell phone, there may be certain periods in which messages and calls are automatically deleted. The faster a forensic analyst can extract the evidence the higher the likelihood that relevant data will not be lost.