ELECTRONIC EVIDENCE IN CRIMINAL JUSTICE: CHALLENGES OF AUTHENTICITY AND ADMISSIBILITY

Abstract

This article studies the problems of authenticity and admissibility of electronic evidence in criminal justice. Because digital technology is now used everywhere, electronic data such as emails, social media messages, bank records and video surveillance footage are increasingly used as evidence in criminal cases. However, the special technical nature of this data creates new legal problems that traditional rules of evidence do not fully address. The study uses formal legal, comparative legal and historical legal methods to analyze the rules on electronic evidence in the Criminal Procedure Code of the Republic of Uzbekistan, together with the Law “On Electronic Document Circulation” and the Law “On Cybersecurity”. These national rules are compared with the approach used in the United States and the European Union. The analysis shows that Uzbek law does not yet clearly define electronic evidence as an independent type of evidence, and it does not set clear criteria for checking the authenticity of such evidence or for conducting technical forensic examination. The article ends with practical recommendations for improving the law, including a clear legal definition of electronic evidence, mandatory digital forensic examination, use of hash based verification methods, and stronger international cooperation on cross border evidence requests