3.1.2 Digital Information Increasingly, perpetrators, victims and witnesses of serious human rights violations create, store and/or share information pertaining to the occurrences in digital form rather than hard copy, such as physical letters or photographs. Guidelines to collect and store digital information differs in some aspects from that of hard copy information. Digital information on serious human rights violations can take many different forms, such as: • Metadata • Audio and video recorded testimony • Digital photography • Video documentation • Email and networked communication • Text messages or SMS communication; and • Posts on social media or news broadcasting platforms. As the creation of information pertaining to serious human rights violations in digital form grows, the use of such information in pursuit of legal and other types of redress is increasing as well. As with any other type of information presented in court as evidence, digital information will be subjected to scrutiny as to its probative value. However, the verification of the authenticity, reliability and chain of custody of a piece of digital information presents challenges unlike those encountered with other, more conventional, types of information. Detection of contamination and other types of changes made to the content of digital information and determination of authenticity require advanced technological knowledge and resources. Neither lawyers, judges nor other officials involved in an investigation will necessarily have such resources at their disposal. It is therefore important that the producer and subsequent handlers of the information ensure that these professionals are given sufficient data to allow them to determine the probative value of digital information. As a general principle, strive to maintain as much as possible of the integrity of the original file; whenever possible, the best is to preserve the original physical storage media used to collect the relevant data (eg. the mobile phone, the camera, the computer); seal the device containing the relevant media, putting the collector’s signature on the seal. When that is 67