Analysis of Dependencies & Legal Barriers on Digital Forensic Investigations in Sri Lanka

Abstract

The objective of this research is to investigate dependencies and legal barriers arises when conducting digital forensic investigation in Sri Lankan context. Since the Sri Lankan legislations on computer crimes are now outdated and were written before the era of computer forensics, computer forensics experts face major problems during computer forensic investigations. Due to this issues, lot of court cases were delayed for over years and still open for interpretation. To firmly analyse this prevailing issue, Evidence (Special Provisions), Electronic Transactions Act, Payment Device Fraud Act, Computer Crime Act and Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters Act were analysed against the basic digital forensic process (acquisition, preservation, analysis and presentation). Empirical evidences form digital forensic engineers were also gathered using questionnaires. Seven issues were recognized during this research and they are, Cross Jurisdictional Conflicts, Cloud Computing Challenges, Need of National Certification Authority, Need of Legally Accepted Forensic Software Tools, Stored Communication, Anonymization and Technical Competencies of digital forensic experts. These issues were discussed in detailed with the appropriate recommendations and suggestions to improvements. New domains of forensics analysis which need to be included in the current legislative system were also discussed during this research. By referring this research, computer forensics experts would be able to identify techniques to produce legally admissible evidences to the courts.