null Pune February Monthly Meet

1. Who is an Expert?
A.K. Deshpande

2. Who is an Expert?
• Computer Forensics: Computer Forensics is
identification, preservation, extraction, interpr
etation and presentation of computer related
evidence.
• Computer Forensics, also called as “Cyber
Forensics”, is the application of computer
investigation and analysis technique to gather
evidence suitable for presentation in a court
of law.

3. Who is an Expert?
• A person having such computer Forensics
knowledge or expertise is called “Computer
Forensics Expert.”
• Noblett et. al., as well as FBI, define computer
forensics as “the science of acquiring,
preserving, retrieving and presenting data that
has been processed electronically and stored
on computer media.”

4. Who is an Expert?
• A person who has special skill or knowledge in
some particular field; specialist; authority;
trained by practice.
• A person with a high degree of skills in or
knowledge of a certain subject;
• A person with ability who performs skillfully;
• A person having implying skills, facility or
practical wisdom gained by personal
knowledge, feeling or action.

5. Who is an Expert?
• Computer Forensics as the discipline that
combines elements of law and computer
science to collect and analyze data from
computer system, networks, wireless
communication and storage devices in a way
that is admissible as evidence in a Court of
Law.

6. Who is an Expert?
Computer
Forensics
Criminal
Civil Case
Case

7. Who is an Expert?
• Daubert principle is a very famous for cases in
which scientific methods and knowledge is
involved and it is still referred in the court
while determining the test for the admission
of scientific expert’s testimony.

8. Who is an Expert?
• In Frye v United States, 54 App. D.C.
46, 47, 293 F.1013, 1014, for the rule that
expert opinion based on a scientific technique
is inadmissible unless the technique is
“generally accepted” as reliable in the relevant
scientific community.

9. Who is an Expert?
• In 2000, Rule 702 is amended which states
that The Rules – especially rule 702 –place
appropriate limits on the admissibility of
purportedly scientific evidence by assigning to
the trail judge the task of ensuring that an
expert’s testimony both rest on a reliable
foundation and is relevant to the task at hand.

10. Who is an Expert?
• The reliability standard is established by Rule
702’s requirement that expert’s testimony
pertain to “scientific …knowledge,” since the
adjective “scientific” implies a grounding in
science’s methods and procedures while the
word “knowledge” connotes a body of known
facts or of ideas inferred from such facts or
accepted as true on good grounds.

11. Who is an Expert?
• The Rule’s requirement that the testimony
“assist the trier of fact to understand the
evidence or to determine a fact in issue” goes
primarily to relevance by demanding a valid
scientific connection to the pertinent inquiry
as a precondition to admissibility.

12. Who is an Expert?
• The Court must ask: Does this particular person
possess enough specialized or skilled knowledge
about the subject matter in question to enable
him or her to assist the trier of fact?
• But again here the question arises, though the
expert witness possesses the
knowledge, whether the juries or the judge has
understood the technology involved in the case.
Without understanding the technology involved
in the case, how can a judge or the juries deny
expert’s testimony?

13. Who is an Expert?
• Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26 (a)(2)(B)
mandates experts disclose their identity, the
issues their opinions will address , their
professional qualifications (including what
they have published in the past 10 years and
all cases in which they provided expert
testimony in the previous four years) who is
paying them.

14. Who is an Expert?
• In William Daubert v Merrell Pharmaceuticals,
the plaintiff was suing for the birth defects
alleged caused by the medicine “Benedictine.”
• Daubert had eight different scientific witnesses
all testify that the medicine casue birth defects.
• The court decided that the evidence was not
admissible. The ruling was based on the fact that
the court felt these witnesses did not meet the
standard set by the Federal Rules of Evidence.

15. Who is an Expert?
• Daubert test focuses on the following points:
1. While carrying out the investigation, whether the
expert working on that case has used scientific
method i.e. discovery technique. This will help
the court in determining the approach of the
expert and the method used to arrive at the
conclusion is proper or not. The court will see in
the testimony of the expert is able to explain
proper justification of each and every step
performed to arrive at the conclusion.

16. Who is an Expert?
2. The court will also try to analyze whether the
method used by the expert in the present has
ever been used by any other expert or same
expert in any other case. The court may also
look at the impact in the light of facts of both
cases. The court may also see the justification
of each and every step.

17. Who is an Expert?
3. The court may also look at what kind of
discovery methods used and may ask for the
justification. The court may also go into the
inquiry of tools used by the expert and
chances of getting error in computer forensics.
The court may go for the comparison for the
same discovery technique used in present
case with the technique used in the other
cases. It becomes the responsibility of the
computer forensics expert to satisfy judge.

18. Who is an Expert?
4. If the computer forensics expert is relying on
someone’s opinion, then the expert should
produce such document or such opinion
before the court of law to justify his
statement.

19. Who is an Expert?
• The court has given two meanings of
“reliability” at the same time.
• Firstly reliability ensures that the expert’s
“explanatory theory” works and results in a
truthful or valid conclusion.
• Second, it describes a type of evidence
“meriting confidence worthy of dependence
or reliance” by the trier of the fact.

20. Who is an Expert?
• Other factors to be considered when
evaluating the admissibility of expert
testimony:
a. Testing method;
b. Peer review;
c. Error rates;
d. Acceptability within the relevant professional
community.

21. Who is an Expert?
• Minimum Standard to be called as an
“Computer Forensics Expert” may include:
a. Technical knowledge and Qualification
b. Experience
c. Evidence Analysis
d. Discovery technique

22. Who is an Expert?
• Court may reject the Computer Forensics
Expert in the following circumstances:
a. Unable to answer
b. Unable to preserve the evidence
c. Does not find the evidence for the same
issue
d. Vague Conclusion
e. Judge’s discretion

23. Who is an Expert?
• Do we have something like this prevailing
under Indian Laws relating to Computer
Litigations?

24. Thank You