Federal Rule of Evidence 902 amendments took effect on December 1, 2017.
Kelly Twigger reviews the reactions to FRE 902, allowing self-authentication of ESI. Kelly quotes Craig Ball’s must-have’s for the affidavit certifying the collection:
- The corpus of data copied from the electronic device, storage medium, or file is clearly and unequivocally identified;
- The witness verifying the hash value is qualified and experienced in the calculation of a hash value;
- The tool and methodology employed to calculate the hash is known by the witness to be reliable;
- The witness attests that the hash values matched using the verified tool/methodology; and
- The hash value is disclosed (to facilitate independent verification). This last may not be an essential element, but I deem it good practice. Read more about Rule 902 here
