Digital criminal case as a tool for storing electronic/digital evidence

Electronic evidence is increasingly being used in criminal cases. The issue of their incorporation and preservation in their original form is urgent. In this regard, the purpose of this work is to substantiate the expediency of switching to a digital criminal case, one of the functions of which should be the storage of electronic evidence. The subject of the research is an electronic criminal case as a tool for storing and handling electronic evidence in criminal proceedings. The object of the study is legal relations related to the processes of storing, verifying and ensuring the immutability of electronic evidence. The author examines the current methods of storing electronic evidence, highlights their disadvantages. The main focus is on analyzing the advantages and disadvantages of resort to the electronic form of criminal proceedings. The main risks and threats of storing electronic evidence in this way are summarized and ways to overcome them are identified. The research is based on scientific publications relevant to the stated topic, regulatory legal acts of the Russian Federation and case law. To achieve this goal, general scientific methods of cognition, the formal legal method, and the method of legal forecasting were used. As a result of the conducted research, the author identified the disadvantages of the applied method of attaching and storing electronic evidence. The portable electronic media used (optical disks and flash drives) are vulnerable to breakage and do not fully protect information from changes. The possibility of switching to the storage of electronic evidence by attaching it to an electronic criminal case is substantiated. It has been established that an electronic criminal case can ensure a high level of safety and immutability of electronic evidence, transparency of storage, minimizes the risk of their loss, and simplifies familiarization with them. The main conclusions of the study confirm that the introduction of an electronic form of a criminal case is able to meet security requirements. However, the author emphasizes that an electronic criminal case should be considered only as a method of preserving and ensuring the reliability of electronic evidence, without becoming a way of giving artificial credibility to obviously unreliable information.

electronic criminal case, electronic evidence, storage of evidence, familiarization with evidence, proving, criminal proceedings, reliability of evidence, digitalization of criminal proceedings, electronic storage media, verification of evidence