How Law Enforcement Is Better Handling Digital Evidence
The scope of digital evidence and the tools needed to process it are growing quickly. In a 2020 review of digital evidence trends for Interpol, the global international police organization, researchers said the market for digital forensics tools — solutions for generating and extracting digital evidence — would hit nearly $10 billion this year, up from $4.6 billion in 2017.
The resulting need for digital evidence management systems has been spurred not only by the vast amount of digital evidence now being created — most notably by bodycams, smartphones, closed-circuit TV systems and even video doorbells — but also by the mounting challenge state and local agencies face when attempting to categorize digital evidence.
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“I’m a forensic examiner by background, and there was a time when, if I wanted someone’s email inbox, they’d just hand me an entire Exchange database and off we’d go. Not anymore,” says Jim Emerson, vice president of the National White Collar Crime Center and chair of the Computer Crime and Digital Evidence Committee of the International Association of Chiefs of Police.
Not everything in an Exchange database rises to the level of evidence, just as not all bodycam, doorbell and user-generated smartphone video is evidence. Which makes organizing, tagging and tracking digital evidence that much more important.
“Also, there are a lot of digital records inside police departments that they don’t consider evidence now because they’re not tied to a case, but they could be evidence in a month or year,” Emerson says. “That category’s growing because of the amount of automation agencies are leaning on. A huge issue in this digital evidence management discussion is defining what digital evidence is.”