Perception of data privacy in digital forensic investigation

Abstract

The use of digital technology in conventional as well as new age crimes is increasing throughout the world, and researchers are working to develop digital forensics techniques to investigate such crimes. Digital forensic investigation process requires the digital forensic investigator to manually examine the forensic image of the seized storage media. The investigator gets full access of all the data contained in the forensic image including the accused or the victim’s private or sensitive data that may be entirely unrelated to the given case. The unrestricted access on the seized media or its forensic image becomes a significant threat to the accused or the victim’s data privacy as the investigator can view or copy the data at will. There is no legal or technical infrastructure in place to stop such abuse. The paper presents a study containing three different surveys for the three stakeholders in the digital forensic investigation and aim to capture their perception of the accused or the victim’s data privacy. The surveys were circulated in India among the digital forensic investigators, cyber lawyers and the general public respectively. These surveys included questions related to the privacy of digital data present on the storage media during the course of digital forensic investigation and subsequent trial in court of law. The surveys collected 15, 10 and 1889 responses from participants of respective target audience classes. The responses show lack of professional ethics among investigators, lack of legal support for lawyers to protect data privacy during digital forensic investigation and confusion among the general public regarding their data privacy rights. The findings would help in justifying the need for privacy preserving digital forensic investigation framework that protect privacy during the digital forensic investigation process without compromising on efficiency and performance.