Digital Footprints as Forensic Evidence in Criminal Justice: Scientific Foundations, Evidentiary Reliability, and Emerging Challenges

Abstract

The increasing digitisation of social, economic and personal activity has transformed the nature of criminal investigation. Computers, smartphones, cloud platforms, social-media applications, connected vehicles, wearable devices, online banking systems, surveillance systems and Internet services continuously generate traces capable of reconstructing human activity. These traces, commonly described as digital footprints, have consequently become an important component of contemporary forensic investigation. Unlike conventional physical evidence, digital footprints are often dynamic, distributed across multiple devices and jurisdictions, generated automatically by software, and capable of being modified, overwritten, encrypted or deleted. Their evidentiary significance therefore depends not simply upon their existence but upon the scientific reliability of the processes through which they are identified, acquired, preserved, interpreted and attributed to a particular person or event. This article examines the scientific foundations of digital footprints as forensic evidence and analyses the principal challenges surrounding their evidentiary reliability in criminal justice.