LOCARD: Lawful evidence cOllecting and Continuity plAtfoRm Development

Abstract

Digital evidence is currently an integral part of criminal investiga-tions, and not confined to pure cybercrime cases. Criminal behaviours like fi-nancial frauds, intellectual property theft, industrial espionage, and terrorist networks leverage the Internet and cyberspace. The very ubiquity of digital de-vices in modern society makes digital evidence extremely relevant for investi-gations about all kinds of criminal behaviour like murder, contraband activities, and people smuggling, to name a few. Due to its nature, the use of digital evidence in a court of law has always been challenging. It is critical that it should be accompanied by a proper chain of cus-tody, guaranteeing its source and integrity.
LOCARD aims to provide a holistic platform for chain of custody assurance along the forensic workflow, a trusted distributed platform allowing the storage of digital evidence metadata in a blockchain. Each node of LOCARD will be able to independently set its own permission policies and to selectively share access to digital evidence with other nodes when deemed necessary and upon proper authorization through fine-grained policies. LOCARD's modularity will also allow diverse actors to tailor the platform to their specific needs and role in the digital forensic workflow, from preparation and readiness, to collection, to analysis and reporting.