Legal cases and courtroom arguments increasingly feature evidence culled from mobile and smart devices. That trend will surely increase since multiple devices are likely collecting data about you at any given moment.
A recent case in point: A woman in Pennsylvania reported a break-in and told police she was awoken from sleeping by the intruder. Coupled with a lack of physical evidence outside the home, the woman's Fitbit showed that she was up walking around throughout the entire night. She ended up being charged with filing a false police report.
There are additional reports of Fitbit's helping to convict a husband of murder, and recordings from Amazon Echo used as legal evidence (Amazon released the data for the case only after the defendant gave the okay).
The bottom line: Many people have some type of device tracking their every movement, whether it's their phone, a fitness tracker, or a smart watch. Additionally, with the ease of use and abundance of home security cameras, digital doorbells and smart home assistants like Echo and Google Home, it is getting increasingly difficult to hide any types of crimes from being recorded by something.
New Solution for Digital Investigations
Some software companies are looking to build businesses around the mobile data gathering trend. For instance, Guidance Software has expanded its EnCase digital forensic investigation solution to include EnCase Mobile Investigator.
Previously, investigators needed to utilize several different solutions to gather evidence from multiple device types. Leveraging Encase Mobile Investigator, crime fighters, prosecutors and defendants can gather data from a variety of devices including smartphones running Apple iOS, BlackBerry software, Android, and Microsoft Windows, as well as tablets, GPS devices, and other media devices.
Once gathered the software will then dig through the massive amount of data to locate potential evidence, and report those findings to the investigators. This includes the ability to analyze text messages, photos, emails, app data, deleted data, and other crucial information.
EnCase products are already accepted in courts worldwide, with EnCase Mobile Investigator being released for general availability in late June, the company says.
