Digital Forensics in Civil and Criminal Investigations

This article covers what Digital Forensics (DF) is, its purpose and what it involves.

Digital Forensics is a specialised field that focuses on recovering, analysing, and presenting digital evidence in legal or investigative contexts. The goal of DF is to forensically uncover and document digital evidence from devices like computers, mobile phones, and networks. This can evidence the information contained within these sources for criminal, family, or civil offences, such as texts, images, or phone history and geographical positioning. The evidence extracted from these devices could be crucial in proving or disproving actions in court, such as intellectual property theft, employee misconduct, or fraud. As the data is acquired using forensic methodologies any information acquired using Digital Forensic methodologies is legally admissible and can be presented in a court-ready and court-tested format, simplifying the presentation of the evidence for the client.

Digital Forensics and its practical applications:

How is Digital Forensics used in criminal investigations or civil cases?

Historically, Digital Forensics has been used in high profile cases, such as the Madeline McCann investigation and the Silk Road takedown, where it recovered crucial evidence from suspects’ devices. More recently, DF formed a crucial part of the Sarah Everard investigation.

The process of a DF criminal investigation follows 4 key steps:

• Preservation and Identification: Forensic experts preserve digital evidence, such as emails, chat logs, browser histories, or deleted files. To maintain the evidence’s integrity, they create an exact copy (forensic image) of the data, preserving the original for legal proceedings. This ensures the data is preserved in original form and has not been edited since its usage took place. They then identify the digital evidence. This is only reversed when looking at server-based data, in which case they identify and then preserve.
• Data Recovery and Analysis: Investigators use specialised tools to recover deleted, encrypted or hidden data. Techniques like file carving help extract fragments of files from storage devices. Digital forensics can also recover system logs, GPS data, and other metadata, which can indicate the time, location and actions taken on a device.
• Reconstruction of events: Using the analysed data, forensic experts reconstruct the sequence of events that occurred before, during, and after the crime. For instance, they might analyse communications within specific time frames or track GPS locations to place individuals at crime scenes or locations of interest in the investigation such as alibi locations or dump sites. (criminaljusticeprograms)
• Presentation in court: Finally, forensic experts create reports that are admissible in court, and they may give evidence as expert witnesses. These reports often provide detailed findings, including how evidence was collected and the method used to recover the critical information.

Civil Cases: Digital Forensics are used in multiple Civil cases, such as:

• Employment Disputes: In cases of wrongful termination or allegations of harassment, digital forensics can be used to retrieve deleted emails or chat logs that may show evidence of misconduct or corroborate claims made by the parties involved. For example, if an employee claims unfair dismissal, digital forensics may help by recovering relevant communications or records from the workplace to verify or dispute claims made by either party. Additionally, tracking document changes might be another example. Our DF investigation team reported a number of cases where they’ve been able to demonstrate that someone stole another person’s CV and rebadged it as their own or modified a contract.
• Intellectual Property Disputes: For instance, when an employee or business partner is accused of taking proprietary data, DF can track the copying and transferring of sensitive files, showing how and when the data was accessed, duplicated, or shared. Tools used in this context can help prove whether someone breached a non-compete, or confidentiality agreement, by accessing proprietary systems or using protected information.
• Family Law– DF also has a role in family law cases, such as a divorce or child custody cases. In such cases, forensic experts might retrieve text messages, financial data, or other communications that can provide evidence of hidden assets, infidelity, abusive behaviour, or communication between parents that has been forbidden by the family court.

Case Study: Bringing Corporate Fraud to Justice

The real-world application of digital forensics highlights its importance in resolving complex cases. In one instance, CYFOR was instrumental in uncovering unauthorised financial activity within a company. Through meticulous investigation and expert testimony, we helped secure a conviction for over £500,000 in embessled funds. This case underscores the critical role digital forensics plays in uncovering the truth and delivering justice.

If you are interested in the Digital Forensic services CYFOR offers, you can click here, or alternatively watch our instructive video below on what we provide.