Today, many investigations hinge less on physical traces like
fingerprints or footprints, and more on "invisible"
digital breadcrumbs left on smartphones, computers, online cloud
platforms, and Internet of Things (IoT) devices and networks. These
traces underpin the discipline digital forensics: the
identification, preservation, extraction, analysis, and
presentation of digital evidence in a way that is legally
defensible and technically sound
What Counts as Digital Evidence?
Digital evidence is any electronic data that can be used in
criminal, regulatory, or civil investigations. It includes emails,
deleted files, location logs, instant messages, file metadata,
system logs, network traffic, and other artifacts that are not
visible to everyday users. Because modern devices log huge amounts
of activity (app usage, WiFi access, GPS traces, and deleted or
slack-space artifacts) the "digital footprint" of an
event can be extensive.
