Research On China Electronic Evidence Collection Issues

In March 2012, the new version of the People’s Republic of China Criminal Procedure Law listed the "electronic data" as a independent type of evidence with its the 48th article 2nd item in the form of basic law for the first time, giving the electronic data de jure independence. With computer technology, communications technology, and network technology rapidly development, people’s lifestyles have deeply changed, e-commerce and e-government activities also became more and more, but it must be acknowledged that these changes brings convenience to our life, at the same time, some new illegal activities also ensued, and to on these illegal activities for criminal trial, it relies on the support of electronic evidence to a great extent. In this context, it is necessary to conduct an in-depth study on electronic evidence. Electronic evidence gathering is an important aspect of the study on electronic evidence, because of electronic evidence’s unique properties, it exists relations and differences with traditional evidence in terms of gathering, how to grasp these relations and differences is the key to dealing with issues of electronic evidence collection. This paper is divided into eight parts, the first part defines the concept of electronic evidence through comparison method,then introduced the main features of electronic evidence, which has high-tech, invisible, diversity, vulnerability to destructive, objective truth, etc., and then according to different standard, electronic evidence is divided into different types, finally introduced the concept and significance of electronic evidence collection. The second part introduces digital evidence collection in China, and describes the four main issues, including lack of status quo in the legal system, the lack of professionals, backward gathering skills, human rights awareness is weak. The third part introduces five principles that should be followed during the electronic evidence gathering, which is a prerequisite for gathering electronic evidence. The fourth part introduces the current main body of evidence collection in China, including judges, prosecutors, investigators and defense lawyers, and for these four staffs professional knowledge about computers, electronic information and network security etc.,there are certain requirements. The fifth part introduces electronic evidence collection methods, including the General and complex evidence-collection methods, General electronic evidence-gathering methods and traditional methods of evidence collection is not very different, complex electronic evidence collection methods are based on the traditional collection methods for decryption, recovery, and testing, and so on. The sixth part introduces the common four collection techniques during the electronic evidence collection, namely electronic data replication technology, electronic data recovery technology, electronic data search and analysis technology and mobile phone bill analysis techniques, application of these techniques plays an important role to guarantee the authenticity and integrity of electronic evidence. The seventh part introduces the rules on electronic evidence collection, mainly analyses search, seizure and the technical investigation, these three investigative measures are most commonly used in the practice. The eighth part analyses three legal problems of electronic evidence-gathering and puts forward appropriate solutions, and finally looks forward to the future development of electronic evidence in China.