From collection to courtroom: perceptions and realities of how the data flows

There is a strong movement for integrated, technology solutions to be adopted for the presentation of evidence in the Australian courtrooms. Current, commercially available solutions that are being considered create concerns for individual users, as they do not reflect data types or processes within the Australian courts. An individual's understanding of how digital data evidence is collected and prepared for courtroom presentation is derived only from their personal knowledge and activity with the data within the process chain. This user-centred study reflects on the discussions held with the various individuals involved in the process of evidence collection and transformation of digital data to its final format for courtroom evidence presentation. This research has identified the need to take a step back in the design process to substantiate the data flow, and identified the need for justification of how each data type transformation is decided within the process. This research is also of value to stakeholders to understand the stages of the process in which they are not involved