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Digital not allowed


mark-j

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Yesterday I went through a State of Alaska Occupational, Safety &

Health Administration (OSHA) inspection. Halfway through the

morning, the inspector changed the film in his camera. After some

questions, the following came out:

 

1) The State bought all new digital cameras recently.

 

2) The State lost SEVERAL high profile cases because the digital

pictures were not reliable in court.

 

3) The State bought all new P & S cameras and shelved the digitals.

 

4) This is here-say and not admissable in a court of law.

 

5) I am not attempting to start a flame war or Film VS Digital

thread but posting my observations.

 

Cheers.

 

Mark J.

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Intresting. A same kind of contreversy is starting here (holland, europe), as the camera's attached to radars for generating speeding tickets are being replaced with digitals.

 

The reason they are replacing is not only cost-effectiveness, but also no longer flash is needed as they use very sensitive (high iso) digitals. This has the 'advantage' of the camera's going unnoticed (preventing drivers from warning eachother), and not to cause any more accidents by people who react by hitting the breaks because of seeing a flash. Additionally, a lot of cases against drivers are lost now due to the neg's getting lost, etc.

 

As more cases come to court, my bet is the digital factor is definatly going to be used by the defense (I would, I would propably duplicate the image from the file beforehand, they have to give you that here before the case appears in front of court, and insert the licenceplate of the d.a. and show that print to the judge). Poof, case dismissed.

 

My guess is they'll wind up going back to analog also (might take a few years, things like that take ages here) in the end.

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"insert the licenceplate of the d.a. and show that print to the judge). Poof, case dismissed. "

 

People have a very strange view of how courts work, or perhaps the law is wildly different in Holland. If you were to do that in a UK court you'd find yourself looking at a five year sentence for perjury plus another, possible longer sentence for attempting to pervert the course of justice.

 

Lawyers are a lot of things but they're not all daft. One way they deal with digital evidence is to maintain the chain - different people see the image and they can be called as witnesses to testify that it hasn't changed. Generally, having been done in one case, the courts assume it in all subsequent cases. (the reverse is also true, of course - if in one case it's shown that the chain is broken, all other cases are open for re-examination). Beyond that, there are a number of ways to confirm that a digital image has not been tampered with, such as using a check-sum algorithm.

 

I'd suspect that if any cases have been lost it's because the evidence wasn't verifiable which is nothing to do with the image being digital. Plenty of cases involving conventional photography have failed because the image couldn't be verified to the satisfaction of the courts.

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Interesting thread indeed.

Despite i am a (french) lawyer myself i don't know very well this

isue of digital evidences.

My question is: in your own legislation could EXIF data be

considered as an evidence or not?

Cheers.

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If you look online for references to this, they don't seem to be there. It would be useful to have some specific citations in order to verify that this is more than some inspector's personal interpretation. There are citations to digital video surveillance, but they are from 1999.

 

Also, there is "lock-down" technology now for images on digital media. I don't know much about it, just ran into it on the web the other day while looking for something else.

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I can see why in some courts there may be an aversion to digital images. Particularly in light of that image from the last military action in Iraq. Though it really should boil down to chain of custody and the reliability of the photographer/witness.
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Chain of evidence is important, and it would be hard to argue against digital to a judge in traffic court. A jury trial is a whole different situation. It would be a lot easier for the defense attorney to find one juror who thinks that image manipulation was a possibility than to convince people that it never happens.
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From a technological standpoint, if the goal is to certify that a given image is identical to what the camera originally captured, that technology is possible with digital by having the camera apply a digital "signature" to the image it produces, putting it on an equal level with film in that regard.

<p>

But, of course, whether film or digital, just proving that this image was captured by a sensor or frame of film doesn't prove its authenticity, as you can always "create" an image, and have that doctored image captured (e.g. like dup'ing a slide).

<p>

I'm no lawyer, but ultimately it seems that evidence is as trustworthy as the testimony of the person who vouches for it.

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If thats true, thats the first time canon comes up with something that wont make me happy :)

 

But should the put 1Ds in those fixed speedchecks (flitskasten), I bet thell start getting stolen instead of burned :)

 

Additionally, for what it's worth, I understand what I wrote wouldnt work in court. Just showing a way of thinking that will cause using digital photography for evidence controversial for at least a while(proven by this thread itself already).

 

No doubt in my mind a good lab tech could do same stuff on film.

 

No doubt in my mind digital will (eventually) replace film.

 

No doubt in my mind it will be accepted as evidence for some purposes / some cases.

 

No doubt in my mind I'd let my attorny try to use the term 'digital' in any way to keep me out of trouble off should it be neccesary :)

 

Anyhow, enough for this thread for me (although I suspect it will grow larger very very fast)

 

b.t.w. to the original poster: why not in the general forum?

(I came across this originally through the unified view)

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The bottom line is that people no longer trust photographs to be accurate. With film, there was a verifiable strip of negatives or positives that would be difficult to alter. Digital images just kind of float around in cyberland without any substance until somebody runs them through some software so they can be viewed. The same software can alter them. Lawyers question everything in court and try to cast doubt on the veracity of everyone and everything so it should come as no surprise an easily manipulated digital image could become a weak link in a trial.
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Harry,

 

The problem in the digital world that there is a "work around" no matter what you try. While is is possible to retouch a negative, IMO it would be easy to spot such work. Even with digital signatures, there will be some lawyer to cast doubt. And in our legal system thats all that it takes.

 

Too bad politics doesn't work the same way....

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The state should have bought Canon 1Ds's and the "Canon DVKE1 Data Verification Kit". The kit is a combination of hardware/software that allows you to veirify that a digital image has not been altered. I believe they claim that it can detect even a single pixel change from the origianl capture.
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Chip, I'm not sure what you mean by a workaround, but there are strong cryptographic techniques that can reliably authenticate an image as being one that came straight from the camera. A change to a single pixel in the image would be detectable. Obviously, this requires special in-camera support, like the Canon stuff mentioned earlier.

<p>

But if you consider that I can make slides from my Photoshopped digital images, and consider that I can similarly make digital in-camera repros of digital images, then the fact that an image was captured in-camera doesn't necessarily mean that the image is an authentic capture of "the scene", it could just be a capture of the manipulated image. Perhaps an expert could detect this repro, though?

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Photo evidence is always corroborated to establish its veracity.

Every since Matthew Brady:

 

Laywer Q: "Does this photograph represent the scene as you

remember it the day you took this picture?"

 

Photographer A: "Uh huh"

 

Lawyer: "Let the record show that the Photographer answered in

the affirmative."

 

Digital doesn't change things at all.

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Here law enforcement uses film; name brand slrs for the ones who can run them...BUT; for each car; they have several premium disposable 35mm cameras....The depts purchase hundreds of these gems each month; they always work; are simple and dumb to use; and get the job done......A couple of fellows have the wazoo digitals; with verification stuff; but they cannot be everywhere at once; to document daily accidents; cars flipped over; skid marks etc...........A big problem with digital is that the rechargeable batteries always poop out at the worst time.......They have gone to buying disposable lithiums; which have a shelf life of 100 times longer; when kept in a hot trunk of a car; probably the worst place for a camera; film ; or batteries............<BR><BR>Digital is used in court; we do trial posters from digital cameras..; sometimes the quality even approaches the quality of a scanned 35mm disposable cameras negative; which we scan too for trial posters...............I have received disposable 35mm cameras negatives that were much better than the autofocus 35mm slr's negatives; because the focus lock/person somehow focused on the wrong point.............This is actually quite funny; that a 7 dollar disposable makes a great 30x40" trial poster; and the "name brand auto slr" images are just marginal; ie sharp at the wrong object..........In big wrecks; they will shoot with several cameras; to insure a decent recording of what happened...............Many times the filed evidence is actually prints; and that is the official evidence both sides gets to use..........<BR><BR>My observation is that disposable P&S cameras are used; because they work; and have a defined cost ; and are robust; and work in the rain; and available at Walmart at 3am..........................
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