Digital Evidence Closes Cases for Investigators
Because of the changing nature of your client’s relationship with technology, cases are changing and becoming more complicated for investigators. Sure, evidence is no longer just paper documents, but it’s also no longer just electronic documents and email either. Today the smoking gun is likely to be found on a cell phone in a mobile app, or a social media site like Twitter or Instagram, or a Dropbox account in the cloud. What can you do to discover the digital evidence you need and recover it in a cost-effective and timely way to present it to your client?
Smartphones and Cloud Accounts
Today, we all have a cell phone, whether it’s a smartphone, a burner, or even an old feature phone. The average age a child first uses a cell phone is ten years. Some of us have two phones, one for professional and one for personal use. And you’ve connected your iPhone to your iCloud account. Or, you’ve connected your Android phone to your Google account. And you synchronize your evidence between your cell phone and cloud account in real-time as you use them throughout your day.
Cell Phones are Personal Diaries
This new digital ecology on personal and professional cell phones is changing the complexion and challenges of investigations in private and government cases. “The reason why the cell phone is important is that you are carrying around a personal diary of whom you talk to and often what you talked about”, said Robert Morgester, California Deputy Attorney General. Add to that personal diary the photographs and videos you take, the email and text messages you send and receive, and your address book of contacts. And what’s more, this personal evidence is electronically date and time stamped and some of it is tagged with your GPS geolocation.
Focus on Digital Evidence
If you focus only on interviews, skip tracing, and traditional paper or outdated forms of electronic evidence, how effective will you be in getting to the relevant evidence that solves your investigation? Digital evidence recovered from cell phones, computers, and the cloud has the power to tell the stories that must be told. Investigators, like you, who leverage that evidence will increasingly close cases to your client’s satisfaction.
