Abuse Using Technology

Digital evidence is different from other types of evidence that you may want to use in court, such as printed pictures, testimony, or official records. 

One difference is that the original format of digital evidence is in electronic data files. These files are most commonly found on mobile devices and computers or stored in online accounts. Therefore, you will need to think through how to present it in a format that the judge will be able to examine and keep as part of the court’s record.

Digital evidence can be easily changed, damaged, or destroyed. It is important to protect the data by creating backup copies that are saved to a second device, taking screenshots and emailing them to yourself, and updating account passwords. If you take screenshots or photos, you will want to make sure they include the actual phone number or account information of the sender, not what you have the sender saved as in your contacts, as well as any time and date information. The court will also want to see any other messages that are a part of the same conversation to understand the context of the message. For example, if you have a thread of text messages about an upcoming parenting exchange and one of the texts includes a threat, you want to capture the entire conversation about the parenting exchange so the judge can see the threat within the context of the rest of the conversation.