Towards a framework for enhancing potential digital evidence presentation

In the case of digital forensic investigations, the potential digital evidence captured, the analysis, interpretation, and attribution must ultimately be presented in the form of expert reports, depositions, and testimony in any legal proceedings. If the presentation and interpretation of the potential digital evidence is conducted correctly, it is much easier and useful in apprehending the attacker and stands a much greater chance of being admissible in the event of a prosecution. Wrongly presented and interpreted potential digital evidence data might create loopholes for perpetrators to exploit, thus, making it hard to convict and prosecute them. Existing digital forensic investigation process models have provided guidelines for identifying and preserving potential digital evidence captured from a crime scene. However, the extent to which such potential digital evidence may be admissible in a court of law remains a challenge to investigators. This is backed up by the fact that there are currently no standardised guidelines for even presenting the most common representations of digital forensic evidence. Therefore, in the authors' opinion, methodologies and specifications need to be developed in the field of digital forensics with the ability to effectively enhance the potential digital evidence presentation and interpretation in any legal proceedings. In this paper, therefore, we present a step-by-step framework in an attempt to propose high-level guidelines for enhancing the potential digital evidence presentation in any legal proceedings. Such a framework will be helpful to digital forensic experts, for example, in structuring investigation findings as well as in identifying relevant patterns of events to be incorporated during the presentation of potential digital evidence. The framework will also assist law enforcement agencies, for example, to determine, with less effort, the validity, weight and admissibility of any potential digital evidence presented. However, it should be noted that the purpose of this paper is not to replace any of the extensive and known evidence presentation principles, but serves as a survey of the state of the art of the research area while proposing harmonised and high-level guidelines for enhancing the presentation of potential digital evidence in legal proceedings.