Direct Collection (With Login)
Definition
Acquisition using the subject's account credentials or a session cookie lifted from a seized device. Requires legal authorisation under BNSS Section 91 or a warrant; the chain of custody must explain how the credentials were obtained.
- Requires
- Account credentials or a seized session cookie
- India legal basis
- BNSS Section 91 or a warrant
- Custody requirement
- Document how credentials were obtained
- Field
- Social media evidence collection
Common questions
Why does login-based collection need stronger legal authorisation than public collection?+
It accesses content the platform never made publicly visible, so it engages the account holder's privacy and, often, the platform's own terms of service, requiring a warrant or statutory compulsion order rather than simple observation of a public page.
What happens if the source of the credentials is not properly documented?+
Opposing counsel can challenge the evidence's provenance, arguing the login was unauthorised or the session cookie was stale or tampered with, which can lead a court to exclude the material or discount its weight.
Related terms
- API-Based Collection
- Acquisition via the platform's official API: X v2 API, Meta Graph API, LinkedIn API. Requires a developer account, often paid tiers, and...
- Direct Collection (Without Login)
- Acquisition of a target's public profile content using no credentials. The page is served to anyone. Limited to whatever the privacy settings...
- Hunchly
- Browser-based case-management tool for OSINT. Captures every page visited as a hashed snapshot, builds the case dossier and produces a court-ready report....
- Indirect Collection
- Deriving evidence from interconnected accounts (mutual friends, tagged content, common groups) rather than the target's own profile. Powerful when the target's account...
- OSINT
- Open-Source Intelligence. Investigation using publicly available sources: social media, satellite imagery, news archives, public databases. In deepfake casework, OSINT corroborates or contradicts...