The European Standards Organization (ESO), ETSI, has released the document "Techniques for assurance of digital material used in legal proceedings" that aims to define a process of receiving, transforming and outputting material that can be assured digitally (Digital Evidence Bag) and to identify ways to provide assurance of material used in legal proceeding. The document presents a "set of extra tools for those wanting to demonstrate the integrity of digital evidence".

Model for a Basic Digital Evidence Bag.

Source: Techniques for assurance of digital material used in legal proceedings by ETSI.

A.1 (p.12) - The present document considers the assurance of handling and processing of material which is potentially to be used in legal proceedings (often referred to as assurance of evidence in court). Material goes through various steps prior to its presentation in legal proceedings; this is sometimes called the chain of evidence. The present document notes that, in some situations, it is possible and beneficial to provide digital assurance (i.e. using digital and/or cryptographic techniques) to a set of processes or transformations of the material. The present document provides a specification for a process (called a Digital Evidence Bag or DEB) which can be used for handling digital material.

Read more: Techniques for assurance of digital material used in legal proceedings