Are we ready for electronic evidence?
With the widespread use of new technologies, we have become used to using electronic devices for many of our day-to-day activities and communication, thus making the need for electronic accreditation ever more present.
Against this backdrop, a range of intriguing issues have arisen in both the civil and criminal jurisdictions. Can a filing system be deemed a source of evidence? What is the evidentiary value of an e-mail? What is the effect of the recent ruling of the European Court of Human Rights on data storage? What are the practical implications of the use of Trojans and undercover agents in research methods? Where should we draw the line between the right to secrecy in communication and the right to intimacy?
In order to debate these and other issues of an unquestionable importance from a technological and business standpoint, June 6 saw the staging of the latest Electronic Evidence Forum organizedby Samsung and Asnef Logalty, with the collaboration of Garrigues. Presided over by Antonio Garrigues, the forum brought together more than twenty experts from a host of areas, including senior judges, public prosecutors, lawyers, insurance firm managers, representatives from the business community and financial institutions, IT and systems specialists, etc.
The gathering also featured the journalist and director of the magazine Quo, Jorge Alcalde, as the event presenter and moderator, with various roundtables tackling electronic evidence-related issues from a criminal law standpoint, “from theory to practice”; and from a civil law perspective, taking a look at electronic contracts from a business and tech viewpoint.
This without doubt represented an ideal opportunity to take a more in-depth look at the subject within the present-day context, in which companies and managers are increasingly likely to adopt cloud computing solutions.
Garrigues Technology and Outsourcing and Litigation and Arbitration Departments