Nick Vamos & Philip Gardner discuss competing approaches to digital evidence gathering
- Competing approaches to digital evidence gathering in light of the US CLOUD Act and the proposed Regulation on European Production and Preservation Orders for Electronic Evidence in Criminal Matters (‘the E-Evidence Regulation’).
Law enforcement and intelligence agencies across the world are increasingly demanding speedy access to electronic data, most commonly emails or other forms of digital messaging. Such data is ubiquitous, ephemeral and lacks an obvious geographical location: three qualities that give rise to thorny practical and legal problems.
Electronic communications data is as ubiquitous in crime as it is in normal daily life. Offenders communicate via email and social media in order to plan and carry out their schemes. Crucial evidence can be found within a suspect’s internet search history. Some offences, such as hacking and disruption attacks, exist only in the digital world. The importance of digital evidence has been underlined repeatedly in high-profile terrorist investigations, from the UK airline bomb plot in 2006 through to present day attacks in Manchester, Brussels and Paris. It is impossible to investigate the
