ICT adoption by the Malaysian high courts: Exploring the security risks involved

It is a truism that the information and communication technologies (ICT) have changed the way people engage in all aspects of their lives, including how the judiciary functions. The ICT applications adopted by the courts are varied including access to legal materials, high technology information and evidence display systems, electronic filing, foreign language translation, multimedia court records, information and evidence retrieval, audio conferencing, video conferencing and the public´s access to court information via the worldwide web. Drawn from an ongoing research, this paper aims to highlight that the growing adoption of ICT by the courts in many jurisdictions in fact raises several issues of security risks. This paper begins by illustrating the concept of courtroom technology and the current technical applications available in the Malaysian courts. The examination of the emergence of non-legal risks closely connected to security and the legal risk raised by courtroom technology is mediated through the understanding of several basic security control requirements involving authentication, non-repudiation, confidentiality, data integrity and privacy encroachment. The paper contends that despite the common notion that law will always lag behind technology, the courts would need to understand these legal and non-legal security risks and manage them in the most efficient and effective manner if judicial business were to be continually advanced by the ICT.