ACPO Good Practice Guide
For Digital Evidence
THE PRINCIPLES OF DIGITAL EVIDENCE - From the association of chief police officers guide.
Principle 1:
No action taken by law enforcement agencies, persons employed within those agencies or their agents should change data which may subsequently be relied upon in court.
Principle 2:
In circumstances where a person finds it necessary to access original data, that person must be competent to do so and be able to give evidence explaining the relevance and the implications of their actions.
Principle 3:
An audit trail or other record of all processes applied to digital evidence should be created and preserved. An independent third party should be able to examine those processes and achieve the same result.
Principle 4:
The person in charge of the investigation has overall responsibility for ensuring that the law and these principles are adhered to.
The full document for these guidelines, in place at the time, can be found here: