Campus Journalist 
Electronic Evidence
By Harjas Ahuja:-
Electronic evidence is any electronically stored information (ESI) that may be used as evidence in a lawsuit or trial.
Fingerprints or other evidence may also be obtained from the devices collected at a crime scene, a computer forensic technician will use specialized methods, techniques, and tools to acquire data stored on hard disks, USB Flash Drives, or other devices those are known as Electronic Evidence. The growth of Information Technology has not stayed hidden away from e-governance and it is no wonder that these developments are impacting the legal field. Technology is opening broad, from the collection of evidence to their storing to checking their validity. Indian courts today have started developing case laws with regards to electronic evidence and have interpreted legislation in a way to bring in greater admissibility of this electronic evidence to courts. As with other areas of forensics, computer forensics refers to an investigative process of gathering and examining evidence to establish facts so that accurate testimony and evidence can later be presented in court or other hearings. The Key definition being that any work an investigator performs may be scrutinized and used as evidence in court. computer forensics differs from other forensic sciences is that electronic evidence is collected and examined. Data is acquired from a device, the computer forensic technician will then examine it to identify which files, folders, or information may be useful as evidence, and can provide facts about the case. Collecting such Electronic evidence requires following established procedures, and can take considerable amounts of time to ensure it is collected correctly. Because it may reveal the identity of a culprit and be used to establish the guilt or innocence of people, it is vital that the data are not modified as they are acquired, or altered afterwards when the data are examined. Almost any type of crime may result in some type of Electronic Evidence being stored, but every cybercrime commonly requires a computer forensic examine.
They include —
Threatening e-mail
Harassment
Fraud
Hacking or dissemination of viruses
Theft of intellectual property
Child pornography Illegal images will only be stored on a hard disk or other media, proof of an intruder’s activities may be stored in logs.
The purpose of computer forensic expert is to collecting, examination, preservation, and presentation of electronic evidence. Action begins at the crime scene and ends in court or another type of inquiry, such as military or disciplinary tribunals where the process of hearing evidence is different from a criminal court. If evidence is collected, examined, preserved, or presented in a less than adequate manner, the evidence can be called into question and possibly deemed inadmissible in court. If someone broke into the server room and changed permissions on the server, then the room and server would be where you would find electronic evidence. Indian electronic law will be declared in 1972. sections come under these laws are Section 65A and 65B are added by the Information Technology Act, 2000. Section 65A of the Evidence Act provide that the contents of electronic records may be proved in with the provisions of Section 65B of the Evidence Act, any information contained in an electronic record, whether it be the contents of a document, communication printed on a paper, or stored, recorded, copied in optical or magnetic media produced by a computer, it is deemed to be a document and is admissible in evidence without further proof of the production of the original # Conditions of section 65B are —
1. Information was produced during the regular course of activities by the person having lawful control over the computer’s use.
2. The information has been regularly fed into the pc within the ordinary course of said activities.
3. Throughout the material a part of said period, the pc was operating properly, or the improper operation as not like to affect the electronic record or the accuracy of its contents.
4. Information contained within the electronic records comes from such information fed into the pc within the ordinary course of activities.
Evidence Act provides for the non-technical conditions being the requirement of a certificate of authenticity. It is to be signed by a person occupying a responsible position in relation to the device through which the data has been produced. The certificate must identify the electronic record containing the statement in which it was produced and give such particulars of any device involved in the production of the electronic record as may be appropriate for the purpose of showing that the electronic evidence was produced by a computer.
