Digitalization of the Criminal Procedure and Criminal Justice Data

This essay aims to review the criminal justice data from the point of digitalization of the criminal justice process and electronic criminal trial, which is to be put into practice by the year of 2024. The Act on Promotion of the Digitalization of the Criminal Justice System of 2010, amended in 2021 has been enacted to achieve promptness, fairness and transparency in a criminal justice procedure by promoting the digitalization of the criminal justice procedure and to contribute to the extension of citizens’ rights and interests by improving services to citizens in the area of criminal justice. In related to the 2020 Act, the new Act on the Use of Electronic Documents in the Criminal Justice System of 2021 was enacted to implement electronic criminal trial. The term “criminal justice information” means any information that is generated, acquired, or managed by a criminal justice agency through a criminal justice information system in relation to the conduct of criminal justice affairs, and that is expressed in the form of codes, letters, voice, sound, images by means of electronic processing, and the term “criminal justice information system” means an electronic management system built on combining hardware, software, databases, networks, security components, etc. for the use by a criminal justice agency to generate, acquire, store, transmit, or receive criminal justice information. When the criminal justice information are digitalized, they will be “Criminal Justice Data”, which will be the basis of digital criminal justice. For the digitalization of criminal justice process, criminal justice agencies have both duty to cooperate for stable operation of systems, and duty to cooperate in joint use of information. The keys to the successful implementation of digital criminal justice system and the development of the future electronic criminal trial are the organization of cooperative system for the Criminal Justice Information System, and the promotion of attentionability to human rights and security in the matters of criminal justice data.