Privacy in UK police digital forensics investigations

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Schaik, Paul van and Irons, Alastair and Renaud, Karen (2024) Privacy in UK police digital forensics investigations. In: Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS), 2024-01-03 - 2024-01-06, Hilton Hawaiian Village Waikiki Beach Resort.

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Abstract

Background: Privacy is a human right, but what happens when a person’s privacy rights encounter legitimate police investigations? Is it even possible to carry out these investigations in a privacy-respecting way? If the person being investigated makes use of privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs), how does this impact digital forensics investigations? Aim: The aim of our study was to identify how privacy rights and the use of PETs influence police digital forensics practices. Methods: We carried out a study with 10 digital forensics investigators from UK police forces to explore how considerations of privacy and citizens’ PET use inform or affect digital forensics investigations. Results: We identified specific uses of privacy-related principles that ought to apply in digital forensics investigation, and hindraces to digital forensics investigations from citizens’ use of PETs. Conclusions: We concluded with potential implications for practice and ideas for future research to reconcile the law enforcement activities with individual citizens’ inalienable privacy rights.

ORCID iDs

Schaik, Paul van, Irons, Alastair and Renaud, Karen ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7187-6531;
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)