Remember, it doesn’t matter if your law practice is employment, criminal, or personal injury, if the evidence was not collected the evidence cannot be used later. It is 2015 and there has been a shift within the digital evidence field from desktops and laptops to mobile devices and tablets. With the smaller devices comes faster storage for more responsive apps as well as cloud storage. Not too long ago cloud storage was used by large companies to keep their sensitive data stored offsite in the event of catastrophe. Today cloud services are offered to the consumers for free in order to entice them to back up their devices or store their data offline so their data can be placed back onto the device once a new one is purchased.
To further complicate this trend, recent cyber attacks to US businesses and infrastructure have promoted companies to placed additional security measures into place such as encryption and remote wiping in order to prevent data theft.
These enhanced security measures may prevent the acquisition and later analysis of the items as the data may be rendered unretrievable. What’s the best practice? Legally seize the item and have them copied to the fullest extent possible and an analysis can be performed at a later time in necessary.