Digital Chain of Custody Operational Framework

Managing digital evidence is intricate due to the growing intricacies of digital data. It holds a crucial role in legal proceedings, but ensuring the credibility of digital evidence and upholding the chain of custody’s integrity is challenging. Conventional evidentiary standards inadequately audit digital evidence metadata, creating discrepancies between traditional and digital custody.Digital evidence presents unique features that further complicate its administration. These include the ease of duplication, transfer, alteration, and deletion of digital data, making it susceptible to contamination. Moreover, digital evidence can seamlessly cross borders and is often time-sensitive. Existing standards exhibit gaps in the digital chain of custody, causing inconsistencies among stakeholders and EU member states. Standardizing the digital chain of custody (dCoC) is vital for evidence consistency and court admissibility.This paper proposes a standardized dCoC process that safeguards digital evidence’s integrity, enhances transparency, and fosters accountability. It introduces novel concepts like digital custody metadata (DCM), specifying transfer purposes and prompting custodianship at Custody Transfer Points (CTPs). A case study demonstrates the concept’s application, developed within the STRATEGY project and submitted to the CEN/TC 391 standardization body. It offers a new European standard for consistent and reliable digital evidence management.