Biggest hitch in collecting digital evidence is basic, new study says
The major problem law enforcement faces in obtaining digital evidence is not the encryption of devices but figuring out which company holds the relevant data and how to get it, according to a study released Wednesday by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Although much of the debate around access to digital evidence has focused on the challenges law enforcement agencies face in cracking encrypted devices or decoding encrypted data, CSIS researchers William
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A. Carter and Jennifer Daskal have found that the biggest hurdle is actually identifying the phone or email service provider that holds the data.
Obtaining the data sought once the company has been identified ranks a close second, they found.
The issue may seem obscure, but it matters to the thousands of state and local police departments that investigate the majority of violent crimes in the country, the researchers said. In the past, agents with a search warrant could conduct searches of a house or other property on their own, but today more and more of the evidence they seek lies in communications stored by distant technology firms.
The study was based on a survey of hundreds of federal, state and local agencies across the country as well as on dozens of in-person interviews with representatives from a range of entities, including the FBI, state and local law enforcement, major tech firms and privacy groups.
Law enforcement representatives reported that they face problems gaining access to and using digital evidence in more than a third of their cases, a statistic the authors said they expect to grow if national attention is not brought to the issue.
A large part of the problem is a lack of trust between law enforcement and the service providers, the authors found.
“Law enforcement officials expressed deep frustration at what they perceive as slow response times and the inability to talk to an actual human being on the provider side who can help them work through any issues with requests,” the study said.
The officials said they felt that requests for data were rejected if they did not use “the right ‘magic words’ ” or use the same terms as providers, the authors wrote.