New code of practice for digital evidence

The British Security Industry Association, working with the Home Office Scientific Development Branch, has developed a code of practice for the use of digital evidence in the criminal justice system.

The current use of tape-based video evidence is now giving way to digital files, but up until now there has been no best practice that officers have adhered to when handling either tape-based or digital files that will be presented as evidence.

The code also sets out how an audit trail should be established so that copies made of a file can be traced back to their original. The new code of practice can be downloaded from: www.bsia.co.uk/download.html.