Digital Evidence Integrity: Legal and Technical Standards for Ensuring Admissibility

Abstract

Modern judicial proceedings have changed to necessitate a thorough awareness of the admissible and court issues in handling digital evidence in today's fast-paced crime landscape. Criminal investigations have changed due to the growing reliance on digital data, including emails, log files, CCTV footage, and cloud-based information. As a result, the admissibility and integrity of digital evidence are critical issues. In order to guarantee that digital proof is trustworthy and admissible in court, this article looks at how legal demands and scientific forensic standards must cooperate. The study examines important legal concepts as they relate to the Indian Evidence Act, the U.S. Federal Regulations of Evidence, along with various worldwide frameworks, such as authenticity, significance, and chain of custody. Based on generally accepted forensic criteria, it simultaneously examines technical processes such bit-stream photography, cryptographic hashing, metadata retention, and secure evidence storage. The study finds ongoing discrepancies between legal requirements and forensic procedures, especially when it comes to the management and recording of digital data, using doctrinal analyses and comparative analysis. It suggests a unified legal-technical framework with standardised collection procedures, required hash verification, improved digital-evidence verification, and tamper-proof storage methods to address these issues. The study comes to the conclusion that aligning legal requirements with strong forensic protections greatly enhances the legitimacy and admittance of digital evidence, bolstering the efficacy and equity of contemporary criminal justice systems.