Digital Evidence Retention Schedules & Preservation Letters
A Practical Guide to Evidence Retention, Preservation, and Time-Sensitive Digital Evidence
This page helps defense investigators and attorneys identify time-sensitive digital evidence, understand retention schedules, select available preservation routes, draft focused preservation requests, and track what happens next.
Digital evidence can be overwritten, deleted, recycled, or made inaccessible before the defense knows it exists. Video systems may record over earlier footage. Providers may retain different record types for different periods. Applications, devices, vehicles, websites, and cloud services may also change or remove data through ordinary system operation.
Key point: The best forensic tool cannot recover evidence that was overwritten before anyone asked for it. Identify and preserve potentially material sources as early as possible.