Acquisition and retention of potential digital evidence

Abstract

Criminal activities occur regularly in South Africa, yet the perpetrators of these crimes are sometimes not convicted due to insufficient evidence to prove that the alleged crime occurred. To mitigate this problem, in a previous paper the authors proposed the Online Neighbourhood Watch (ONW) system. The purpose of this paper, is to extend the ONW system to include a function that allows law enforcement agents (LEA) and other authorised first responders, to capture crime scene data using their mobile devices and upload the captured PDE data to the (ONW)2 system's repository. The images of crime scenes captured by citizens (stored in the existing ONW system's repository) and the crime scene images captured by the first responders or other crime scene investigators (stored in the (ONW) system's repository) are combined for PDE data analysis, interpretation and comparison during neighbourhood crime investigations. The methodology employed in the extension of the existing ONW system is the use of a continuous system analysis and design process, where the existing ONW system is redesigned to absorb the LEA functions and in the process expanding the ONW system to a new and larger system termed the (ONW system. The (ONW)2 system's design is presented as the primary contribution of this paper.