Digital Photos Give the Police a New Edge in Abuse Cases
It’s surprising more police departments haven’t adopted this sooner, but I think they are generally extremely reluctant to adopt new forms of technology – budget shortcomings, etc. I’d think the problem of tampering with the image would be a huge problem, but I’d think they can create new “chains of evidence” rules that place the image freshly downloaded from the camera into some sort of third party escrow service. When/if a trial occurs, the defense would have access to both sets of photographs and could ensure the police version hasn’t been changed. One of the benefits of digital data is that you can algorithmically (rather than just visually) compare it with an original and see whether it’s been altered.