The Infeasibility of Digital Evidence Due to Lack of Regulation in Computer Crime

Abstract

With the advancement of new technologies, traditional means of evidence such as documents, expert witnesses and  testimonies need a new scope, since in recent years computer crimes have had a great presence and  the creation of  New instruments for obtaining digital evidence to determine the guilt of the subject who commits an offense regarding crimes that may be committed on the Internet. Ecuador doesn’t have a norm that intrinsically regulates digital evidence, although it has normative bodies where it exposes the different ways to be able to adhere the digital evidence to  the process, it does not comply with all the requirements that must be taken into account when it is a criminal process. In the Organic Integral Criminal Code there are criteria for the evaluation of evidence, but focused only on physical evidence, leaving aside digital evidence. There is the Budapest Convention where it will serve for  the obtaining and reproduction of digital evidence,  but Ecuador is preparing for accession, unlike other Latin American countries that it is already a part.