Legal Documents (Digital Evidence)
Judicial systems are accepting the use of digital technology to more
effectively and efficiently process criminal and civil cases. Law enforcement, like so many
other organizations, are converting paper records to digital form. Consequently,
digital images created from physical documents are being presented as digital
evidence.
Two concerns affect the digitization programs in the legal communities. One is that digital image
is an accurate reproduction of the original document. The second is that the image data hasn't been tampered with
after it was produced. After all, current technology makes it easy to modify an image, often in ways that are
difficult or impossible to detect. These two concerns must be addressed before a scanned document can be entered as evidence.
To ensure that a document has been scanned so it is faithful to the original,
a quality assurance program must be adopted as part of the digitization process. Certifi Pedigree® provides
automated, efficient tools to allow an organization to achieve a desired level of quality assurance. Once the
quality assurance need is met, Certifi Pedigree® closes the loop by
using a digital signature to combine the quality measurements of each scan
with the scanned image data so any tampering can be detected.
In the legal community, an image
with a digital signature is accepted as unaltered from the point at which the
digital signature was signed. What the image was subjected to before the signing
would still be unknown. Therefore, a viable question from a trial attorney
regarding the authenticity of an image would be: "The image is authentic from
the point at which you signed the image. Now, how can we know the image actually
reflects the original?" Only Certifi Pedigree® provides the unique combination of technologies that removes this uncertainty.
First, the scanned data must represent the original document with sufficient fidelity. Second,
proof must be provided that the data has not been changed since its
creation. Certifi Pedigree is the only product that simultaneously addresses both of these issues.
Paul Jones
COO and Cofounder