Forensic study of the authenticity of office files

Currently, technology is very present in our lives, so that more and more, computer-based evidence is part of everyday life in the judicial field. One of the most common cases is the accreditation or challenge of facts through office files, in which it is sought to determine the origin, authenticity and integrity of the same.

Nowadays, the use of office files is widespread both at a private and business level. Specifically, we refer to PDF files and those related to the Microsoft Office package. The amount of information that these types of documents can include is wide, varied (images, graphs, tables, etc.) and valuable for a forensic analysis.

Frequent cases

The most frequent types of orders are:

• Decide on the authenticity of the document.
• Identify the author of the document.
• Find out the creation date of the document as well as the dates on which it was modified.
• Recovery of previous versions of the document.
• Identify hidden information (steganography).

Considerations

“The appealed ruling is essentially based on the ineffective and invalid expert evidence that has been provided as the only justification for the facts imputed in the letter of dismissal to the plaintiff, for several reasons explained by the Magistrate of Instance in her ruling. The first is because she understands that the expert presented by the company lacks an official degree in computer science, although at this point it is recognized that the expert is the person who provides computer assistance to the company as a freelancer, which implies at least a practical knowledge of what he is hired for. On the other hand, the informal nature of the expert evidence and the questioning of the chain of custody are argued. Special mention is also made of the breach of the guarantees of the plaintiff’s right to privacy at the time of carrying out the inspection and search of the computer equipment, declaring it proven that the plaintiff was not present. In short, the Magistrate of Instance, evaluating this evidence and the testimonies provided at the oral trial concludes that the defects in the practice of the expert evidence carried out by the company prevent granting probative value to this means of proof, and given that it is essential to prove the facts imputed to the plaintiff, declares the dismissal unjustified.”

Why hire our services?

From FORENSICTECH we provide our clients with the security of having:

• A computer expert specialized in your case, collegiate and legally authorized to act in the Spanish courts of justice.
• Appropriate instruments and specialized software to develop your expert report.
• Legally recognized chain of custody investigation and assurance methods.
• An effective and efficient work in the requested expert report.
• A certified computer expert opinion, which greatly increases your credibility and reliability before judicial bodies, as it is endorsed by a professional association.
• A computer expert capable of facing the ratification in oral proceedings in all jurisdictional orders.
• Our performance in all the courts of justice throughout Spain in all jurisdictional areas.