Chain of custody (cross-border)
Definition
The documented record of every person who handled digital evidence from its original collection in a foreign jurisdiction through its transfer, receipt, and presentation in domestic proceedings. A gap in cross-border chain of custody is one of the most common grounds for challenging MLAT-obtained evidence.
Related terms
- Article 29 preservation request
- An expedited mechanism under the Budapest Convention allowing a signatory state to ask another signatory to preserve specific computer data for at...
- Budapest Convention
- The Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime (2001), the first binding international treaty on cyber offences. Requires signatory states to criminalise illegal...
- Central authority
- The government body designated under an MLAT or domestic law to send and receive formal mutual legal assistance requests. In the US...
- G7 24/7 Network
- An informal around-the-clock contact network originally established by G7 countries and now including additional states, allowing law enforcement to request urgent informal...
- Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT)
- A bilateral or multilateral treaty under which signatory states agree to assist each other in gathering evidence for criminal investigations. MLATs define...
Explained in
- Cross-Border Evidence and Mutual Legal AssistanceThe documented record of every person who handled digital evidence from its original collection in a foreign jurisdiction through its transfer, receipt, and pr...