Protecting Digital Data Privacy in Computer Forensic Examination

Law, Frank Y. W.; Chan, Patrick; Yiu, Siu-Ming; Chow, Kam-Pui; Kwan, Mei Po; Tse, Hayson; Lai, Pierre K. Y.

doi:10.1109/sadfe.2011.15

Cited by 29 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…Law et al, [39] proposed some cryptographic models to be incorporated into existing digital forensics processes to protect data privacy, Guo et al, [40] defined general privacy policies and rulings for network forensic investigation; Pangalos et al, [41] described the role of forensic readiness in optimizing security and privacy of different organizations; S. Pearson [42] developed a privacy model and a language to incorporate privacy requirements within companies audit and assurance mechanisms while [43] studied forensic policy specification and its usage in forensic readiness. K. Reddy et al, [44] proposed a theoretical forensics readiness framework for enterprise organizations.…”

Section: Privacy Protection Technologies For Digital Investigationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Privacy-respecting digital investigation

Dehghantanha

Franke

2014

2014 Twelfth Annual International Conference on Privacy, Security and Trust

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the forensics investigation requirements are in direct conflict with the privacy rights of those whose actions are being investigated. At the same time, once the private data is exposed it is impossible to 'undo' its exposure effects should the suspect is found innocent! Moreover, it is not uncommon that during a suspect investigation, private information of other innocent parties becomes apparent to the forensics investigator. These all raise the concern for development of platforms for enforcing privacy boundaries even to authorized forensics investigators. To the best of authors' knowledge, there is no practical model for privacy-respecting digital investigation which is capable of considering different jurisdictions requirements and protecting subjects' data privacy in line with investigation warrant permissions and data-origin privacy requirements.Privacy-respecting digital forensics as an emerging crossdisciplinary research area is moving toward addressing above issues. In this paper, we first establish needed foundations and describe details of "privacy-respecting digital investigation" as a cross-disciplinary field of research. Afterwards, we review main research efforts in different research disciplines relevant to the field and elaborate existing research problems. We finalize the paper by looking at potential privacy issues during digital investigation in the light of EU, US, and APEC privacy regulations.The main contributions of this paper are first establishing essential foundations and providing detailed definition of "privacy-respecting digital investigation" as a new crossdisciplinary field of research, second a review of current state of art in different disciplines relevant to this field, third elaborating existing issues and discussing most promising solutions relevant to these disciplines, and forth is detailed discussion of potential privacy issues in different phases of digital forensics life cycle based on EU,US, and APEC privacy regulations. We hope this paper opens up a new and fruitful avenue in the study, design, and development of privacy respecting forensics investigation as an interdisciplinary field of research.

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Section: Privacy Protection Technologies For Digital Investigationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Organizational setup to limit private information disclosure during forensics investigation i.e. [39][40][41][42][43][44][45]. 2.…”

Section: Privacy Respecting Digital Investigation Technologiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Privacy-respecting digital investigation

Dehghantanha

Franke

2014

2014 Twelfth Annual International Conference on Privacy, Security and Trust

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“…(p.19). • Law et al (2011): "To enable the protection of data privacy, personal data that are not related to the investigation subject should be excluded during computer forensic examination" (p.1). • Losavio et al (2015): "This highlights the twin challenges of forensic accessibility in these highly mobile devices and the intense privacy concerns which may now accompany the profiles of people in ways never before possible."…”

Section: Forensics Investigations Ethical Guidelinesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The privacy of the subject should be protected by only investigating topics identified as being of interest to the investigation (Law et al, 2011;Dehghantanha and Franke, 2014).…”

Section: P2 P3mentioning

confidence: 99%

PRECEPT: a framework for ethical digital forensics investigations

Ferguson

Renaud

Wilford

et al. 2020

JIC

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PurposeCyber-enabled crimes are on the increase, and law enforcement has had to expand many of their detecting activities into the digital domain. As such, the field of digital forensics has become far more sophisticated over the years and is now able to uncover even more evidence that can be used to support prosecution of cyber criminals in a court of law. Governments, too, have embraced the ability to track suspicious individuals in the online world. Forensics investigators are driven to gather data exhaustively, being under pressure to provide law enforcement with sufficient evidence to secure a conviction.Yet, there are concerns about the ethics and justice of untrammeled investigations on a number of levels. On an organizational level, unconstrained investigations could interfere with, and damage, the organization's right to control the disclosure of their intellectual capital. On an individual level, those being investigated could easily have their legal privacy rights violated by forensics investigations. On a societal level, there might be a sense of injustice at the perceived inequality of current practice in this domain.This paper argues the need for a practical, ethically grounded approach to digital forensic investigations, one that acknowledges and respects the privacy rights of individuals and the intellectual capital disclosure rights of organizations, as well as acknowledging the needs of law enforcement. The paper derives a set of ethical guidelines, and then maps these onto a forensics investigation framework. The framework to expert review in two stages is subjected, refining the framework after each stage. The paper concludes by proposing the refined ethically grounded digital forensics investigation framework. The treatise is primarily UK based, but the concepts presented here have international relevance and applicability.Design/methodology/approachIn this paper, the lens of justice theory is used to explore the tension that exists between the needs of digital forensic investigations into cybercrimes on the one hand, and, on the other, individuals' rights to privacy and organizations' rights to control intellectual capital disclosure.FindingsThe investigation revealed a potential inequality between the practices of digital forensics investigators and the rights of other stakeholders. That being so, the need for a more ethically informed approach to digital forensics investigations, as a remedy, is highlighted and a framework proposed to provide this.Research limitations/implicationsThe proposed ethically informed framework for guiding digital forensics investigations suggests a way of re-establishing the equality of the stakeholders in this arena, and ensuring that the potential for a sense of injustice is reduced.Originality/valueJustice theory is used to highlight the difficulties in squaring the circle between the rights and expectations of all stakeholders in the digital forensics arena. The outcome is the forensics investigation guideline, PRECEpt: Privacy-Respecting EthiCal framEwork, which provides the basis for a re-aligning of the balance between the requirements and expectations of digital forensic investigators on the one hand, and individual and organizational expectations and rights, on the other.

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“…These digital storages devices do not contain only case related data but also store accused personal and professional data. This data might not be relevant to the investigating case but leads to the privacy breach of the accused data as all the data is being handed over to the investigator without any restriction or consent of the accused [4]. Some wrong claims leads to major loss to accused business, social and personal relations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Privacy preserving efficient digital forensic investigation framework

Gupta

2013

2013 Sixth International Conference on Contemporary Computing (IC3)

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In today's era, efficiency of digital forensic investigation process is the biggest challenge for digital forensic community. The efficiency of investigation depends on the other various factors like storage capacity of digital media, proficiency of investigator and type of investigating case. Moreover, these storage devices do not store only investigating case related data but also stores accused personal and professional information which can lead a breach of privacy of accused. Very little attention has been given to make digital investigation process fully automated. In the Privacy Preserving Efficient Digital Forensic Investigation (PPEDFI) framework, we bridge the gap between efficiency and the privacy issue in digital forensic investigation process. The main contribution of the PPEDFI framework is to make the digital investigation process automated and shorten the turnaround time in evidence extraction process, thus saving the cost and time of digital investigation process. To evaluate the system, we conducted an investigation study namely: Digitized Document Fraud. The proposed framework was able to extract the evidence files and also rank them on the basis of their relevancy for being evidence.

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Protecting Digital Data Privacy in Computer Forensic Examination

Cited by 29 publications

References 7 publications

Privacy-respecting digital investigation

Privacy-respecting digital investigation

PRECEPT: a framework for ethical digital forensics investigations

Privacy preserving efficient digital forensic investigation framework

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