  As the world becomes increasingly dependent on technology, researchers in
both industry and academia endeavor to understand how technology is used, the
impact it has on everyday life, the artifact life-cycle and overall
integrations of digital information. In doing so, researchers are increasingly
gathering 'real-world' or 'in-the-wild' residual data, obtained from a variety
of sources, without the explicit consent of the original owners. This data
gathering raises significant concerns regarding privacy, ethics and
legislation, as well as practical considerations concerning investigator
training, data storage, overall security and data disposal. This research
surveys recent studies of residual data gathered in-the-wild and analyzes the
challenges that were confronted. Amalgamating these insights, the research
presents a compendium of practices for addressing the issues that can arise
in-the-wild when conducting residual data research. The practices identified in
this research can be used to critique current projects and assess the
feasibility of proposed future research.
