Digital Records Forensics: Ensuring Authenticity and Trustworthiness of Evidence Over Time

As digital evidence becomes increasingly common in the court systems, educated, trained professionals are required to manage the lifecycle of evidence from initial collection through final disposition. This paper describes a work-in-progress between the University of British Columbia and the Vancouver Police Department toward the creation of a new discipline, called Digital Records Forensics, focusing on the authenticity, trustworthiness and admissibility of evidence over time. The Digital Records Forensics Project is engaging in a wide range of research activities, including multi-national, cross-domain interviews, extensive interdisciplinary literature reviews, case studies and digital forensics workflow modeling.