Regresar

The preservation of digital evidence and its admissibility in the court

Abstract:

This article's objective is to screen and analyse the common models of digital preservation that exist, the elements, the degree of compliance with the general guidelines, the use of techniques and compliance with specific requirements as well as to evaluate the need for a solution to the environment of criminal investigation institutions, in the scenario that lacks a specific model. The importance of the preservation of digital objects is currently heavily analysed. Several aspects may serve to make the digital objects worthless, such as the uselessness of hardware, the deficiency of ancient computing formats to support their use, human errors and malicious software. The majority of crimes currently have a digital component, such that governments and the police are obliged by law to indefinitely hold digital evidence for a case's history. Until the presentation of the digital evidence in court, the evidence must be collected, preserved and properly distributed. The systems currently used often involve multiple steps that do not meet the demands of the growing digital world. The volume of digital evidence continues to grow, and these steps will soon become operationally and economically unfeasible for agencies responsible for performing these tasks.