Research Program on Digital Evidence

The British Institute of International and Comparative Law fosters a number of research initiative, of which the Digital Evidence Research Programme is one, with the broad aim of researching:

the practical and legal issues that accompany the inclusion of digital evidence into judicial proceedings. The IT industry provides products on a global scale, and IT has now become ubiquitous. Information technology affects us all, even though we may not appreciate how it affects our daily lives. It also affects human relationships, and in turn, documents created by IT systems are the subject of evidence in legal proceedings.

The IT industry itself, both collectively and individually, carries out research into new products and services with a view to providing for the integrity of digital documents. However, the legal issues remain, and this programme aims to conduct research into the area with a view to offering high quality peer reviewed applied research, with a sound analysis that in turn will be of benefit to the IT industry, judges, lawyers, legal teachers, scholars, police forces and users of IT.

The first project of the program concerns “Proof of the integrity of a digital document introduced as evidence.” The description of the project does a good job of laying out some of the issues.

Anyone interested in becoming involved in a Canadian aspect of the broader programme or in learning more about the research project can contact Programme Director Stephen Mason.

[via the ulc_ecomm-l list]