A new threat looms over international prosecutions – I’d love your help
What if digital evidence collected over a period of years, or even decades, wasn’t admissible within court because it was improperly’ handled by individuals with nothing but the best intentions? In the complete absence of internationally recognised legal standards regarding how digital forms of evidence should be recorded, handled, and archived - future prosecution efforts continue to remain in jeopardy.
Whether you practice journalism, law, or advocate within civil society, the entanglement of digital technology and our physical environment has become commonplace. While more accessible forms of technology have given civilians the tools to readily record media and data — that has the ‘potential’ to be admissible evidence in court — the absence of any standardised legal frameworks regarding how data should be collected and stored presents a very important and contemporary problem: How do we forensically handle digital evidence?
The Digital Evidence Preservation Toolkit (DEPT) is a project bringing together expert voices from the field to talk about the complexities of handling digital evidence. It aims to create a robust, immutable archiving software. Designed to preserve the digital chain of custody to a high enough standard to sustain the intense juridical pressure and scrutiny presented by state-actors or multi-national corporations. Raising the bar of what a group of dedicated individuals can do to protect the material they collect.
The project is currently in development and frankly there is so much to read and know that we’d love to hear from you. Please reach out to basile@digitalevidencetoolkit.org 👋
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