Digital evidence
What a digital item is worth before a judge: electronic writing, electronic signature, reliable copy, e-mail, screenshot, connection log, bailiff's report, hash and timestamp.
- 22 cards
- 4 topics
- Free
The outline, topic by topic
Each topic is weighted the way the exam weighs it.
- Concepts
- Questions
- Sort and link
- Scenarios
A few cards from the deck
Electronic writing: what is it?
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A series of signs in digital form, which counts as evidence like a paper writing if its author can be identified and its integrity is guaranteed (article 1366 of the Civil Code).
The medium does not matter, the guarantees do: an e-mail whose author cannot be identified nor its integrity guaranteed is only a clue.
A customer produces a screenshot of a conversation as evidence. What is it worth?
- An item the judge assesses freely, easy to challenge
- Irrefutable proof, since the image faithfully reproduces the screen
- None: judges refuse any digital item
- Perfect proof, if its maker attests on his honour that it is faithful
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An item the judge assesses freely, easy to challenge
A screenshot is easy to fabricate or retouch and establishes neither its author nor its date. It stays admissible, but only as a clue, often to be backed up.
An electronic writing has the same evidential force as a paper writing if its … can be identified and its … is guaranteed.
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An electronic writing has the same evidential force as a paper writing if its author can be identified and its integrity is guaranteed.
These two conditions of article 1366 are the key: who wrote it, and has the text stayed intact. Without them the item is a mere clue.
Electronic signature: what is it?
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A reliable identification process that shows its author's consent to an act and guarantees its link with that act (article 1367).
An image of a handwritten signature pasted into a PDF is not one: nothing ties it to the act or reliably identifies its author.
A competitor copies your site's pages and may take them down tomorrow. Which means gives the strongest proof?
- A screenshot you took yourself on your own computer, which is conclusive until proved otherwise
- A bailiff's report, which fixes the state of the pages at a given date
- An e-mail asking for removal, with the competitor's reply
- A friend's testimony that he saw the pages
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A bailiff's report, which fixes the state of the pages at a given date
A personal screenshot can be challenged: nobody knows how or when it was made. The bailiff records it himself under verifiable conditions, which gives his report its force.