Objectives

The objectives of this research program are:

1. to develop concepts and methods that will allow the archival, legal, judicial and law enforcement professions to recognize records among all digital data objects produced by complex digital technologies once they have been removed from the original system;
2. to develop concepts and methods to determine the authenticity of records no longer in the original digital environment;
3. to develop methodologies for extracting records from the digital system in which they are found and maintaining them over the long term in such a way that their authenticity can be presumed;
4. to identify, develop and organize the theoretical and methodological content of a new discipline called “Digital Records Forensics;” and
5. to develop the intellectual components of a new program of education within archival studies for Digital Records Forensics experts. This program will have at its core the knowledge developed on the basis of the proposed research and will include aspects of Digital Preservation, Conservation, Computer Forensics, the Law of Evidence, Classical Diplomatics, Archival Diplomatics and Archival Science, combined in such a way that new knowledge will continuously derive from their interaction.