What is Evidence?

What is Evidence?

Evidence is any information used to establish facts in a legal proceeding. It's what helps a court decide what actually happened. Without solid evidence, even the strongest case can fall apart.

Digital vs Physical Evidence

Physical evidence is tangible—documents you can hold, photographs, contracts with signatures. Digital evidence is information stored or transmitted electronically: emails, text messages, social media posts, cloud files, and more.

The key difference? Digital evidence is easier to alter, duplicate, and delete—but it also leaves traces. Metadata, timestamps, and server logs can prove when something was created, modified, or accessed. This makes digital evidence incredibly powerful when collected properly, but it also means the collection process matters just as much as the evidence itself.

Types of Digital Evidence

Cloud-based evidence lives on someone else's servers—your emails in Gmail, files in OneDrive or Google Drive, messages on WhatsApp or Instagram. Collecting this requires accessing the account and capturing data in a way that proves it hasn't been tampered with.

Physical media evidence is stored locally—a hard drive, USB stick, or phone. This often requires forensic imaging, creating an exact bit-for-bit copy while preserving the original.

Communications evidence includes emails, texts, DMs, and chat logs. These often span both cloud and local storage.

Web-based evidence covers websites, social media profiles, and online posts—things that can disappear or change at any moment.

When Should Digital Evidence Be Collected?

The short answer: as early as possible.

Digital evidence is fragile. Messages get deleted. Accounts get deactivated. Cloud providers change their retention policies. Someone realises they're in trouble and starts cleaning up.

Collect evidence when:

• You first suspect you might need it (don't wait for legal proceedings to begin)

• Before notifying the other party of a dispute

• When content is still publicly accessible

• Before any deadlines that might trigger deletion (like account closures or retention limits)

The golden rule: if you think you might need it, capture it now. It's far easier to have evidence you don't end up using than to wish you'd grabbed it when you had the chance.

Why Collection Method Matters

A screenshot on your phone might show what was said, but it won't prove when it was taken, that it hasn't been edited, or that it's a complete record. Courts increasingly scrutinise how digital evidence was obtained.

Proper forensic collection creates a chain of custody—a documented trail showing exactly how evidence was captured, by whom, and that it hasn't been altered since. This is what makes evidence admissible rather than just informative.