Preservation Of Digital Evidence In Criminal Justice System

With the development of Internet technology, electronic information has become an integral part of our daily lives. Information from internet, mobile phones and other devices involved in our lives offers great convenience; however, the internet and digital technologies provide a platform for committing crimes on an industrial scale, which causes significant damage to public and private property.When judicial organs and organizations handling criminal cases, shall apply forensically sound methods to preserve digital evidence at every stage of investigation and trail to support the cases. However, electronic or computer crime as a new form of crimes, presents as a great challenge to the judicial organs and organizations.The technology of preserving digital evidence is well developed in the western countries, as well as forensic procedures and laws. New statements regarding the preservation of digital evidence on Criminal Procedure Law of the People’s Republic of China amended in 2012, represent that digital evidence had officially become a form of evidence in law. However, we still have long way to go in the approach of the development of precious preservation and legislation of digital evidence, which requires the involvement of forensic experts and all the relevant others.This paper introduces introduce the definition and characteristics of digital evidence, as well as the characteristics and importance of preservation of digital evidence.In this paper we describe the development of preserving digital evidence in the criminal justice system, particularly in China, including the relevant principles, methods, technology and procedure, In this paper, we also mention the troubles and studies for which we are currently facing when dealing with preservation of digital evidence. The paper aspires to have some suggestions regarding the lessons learnt from legislation.