Dear members, I am currently working on some research into problems which arise when data which is potentially to be used as evidence is mandated by law to be stored for long periods of time - one example being the requirement (for AML purposes) in the financial services sector to hold on to certain identifying data of customers for the lifetime of their relationship with their bank, which could easily be decades.
Of particular interest to me are issues such as the gradual degradation of data stored on magnetic or optical storage media, information about the rates of such degradation, strategies for preserving data inviolate in the face of such physical deterioration over time and strategies for recovery of degraded data such that it retains (to the best extent possible) the evidential weight it held when first recorded.
If anyone is aware of existing research into this area or has personal experience with the management of long term data/evidence archives I would be very interested to hear from you.
We have discussed about it to some extent, which could give some idea others exerience on that.
http//www.forensicfocus.com/index.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=5457&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0
Thanks Yunus, that was an interesting thread with some good leads!