Event Recap | Beyond a Reasonable Doubt: Authenticity in Courtroom Evidence
Recently, we hosted a conversation about authenticating digital evidence used in the courtroom and the role that content provenance can play in the criminal justice system. Participating were Jan Norman, Assistant District Attorney at the Davidson County Office of the District Attorney in Nashville; Brandon Epstein, Technical Forensic Specialist at Magnet Forensics and Chair of the Scientific Working Group on Digital Evidence; and Geoff Lambright, Co-Founder of Forensic Photonics.
Norman explained the standard of proof in criminal cases, the requirements for admissibility of evidence, how the totality of facts and circumstances surrounding a piece of evidence is considered, and how doubt about digital evidence is weighed in court.
Epstein spoke about why he thinks that proving authenticity is the biggest challenge to evidentiary integrity, the difference in forensic approach between evidence produced for court use and evidence “from the wild,” and how provenance technology is just part of a wide variety of solutions that will be required in the future to prove originality or identify manipulation.
Lambright demonstrated Forensic Photonics’ LIFT, a C2PA-enabled device for capturing latent fingerprint images from crime scenes that signs files with secure metadata. He spoke about his inspiration for creating the device as a solution for streamlining the process of digital evidence collection through to courtroom presentation, and how LIFT and C2PA technology can make courtroom proceedings more efficient and less costly. (Due to technical difficulties during the live event, Lambright’s segment of the conversation was recorded separately.)
“Digital evidence is ever evolving,” said Epstein. “The things that we talk about today will change drastically six months from now. We need new technology to meet that. C2PA is one of those technologies that I can see being implemented in the future, as one data point among many other data points that help to prove authenticity in court.”
Watch the event in full below: