From "Forensics" to "Certificate of Deposit"——Building a Legal Supervision Data Theory System by Using Blockchain Technology

The core of legal work is evidence. The legitimacy and relevance of evidence are solved by logic and speculation in court. However, the truth of evidence is not true. The authenticity comes from the source of investigation and evidence collection, from the middle of the storage. And move the exchange. Whether at the source or in the middle, the authenticity of the evidence has the possibility of being tampered with. This is not only the focus of procuratorial work, but also the problem of various criminal, civil, administrative, and public litigation participants. . If the authenticity of the process of obtaining, storing and transmitting evidence can be effectively solved , for the procuratorate and all kinds of litigation participants, a win-win situation will be achieved .

In recent years, in order to better solve the problem of authenticity of evidence, the whole society has begun to apply new technical means to the process of forensics, evidence storage and transmission. Surviving images and sounds with cameras, cameras, surveillance cameras, law enforcement recorders, mobile phones, drones, etc. (essentially transforming reality into data signals through light sensors and sound sensors), regardless of investigative agencies, administrative law enforcement agencies It is still a very common method of obtaining evidence for enterprises, institutions and even ordinary people. In addition to video and audio data, all walks of life have established or are building information management systems to standardize and order all types of data. Some systems are well-known and well-known, such as WeChat used by ordinary people every day. Qq, Alipay, the office system, financial system, and business system that every employee must operate every day; some systems are hidden in the cloud, and ordinary people are not aware of its existence, but it knows your information very well. Deeply affect your life, such as 360, it is not only to help you prevent virus risks, it also collects data about computers and mobile phone users, such as Taobao and other e-commerce, it is not just an online shopping platform, but also Know your preferences and tastes, and even your salary income and consumption levels.

It can be said that today, we live in an era of being wrapped in electronic data, so even traditional cases (criminal cases such as murder and robbery, civil cases such as natural person lending) will have electronic data as the main evidence (such as urban cameras). Video, Alipay transfer records), let alone those new types of cases (computer network, financial field, CNC manufacturing field) that are constantly emerging with new technologies, it is necessary to rely on electronic data evidence to find out the facts. Therefore, today, we can say that the judicial case is to do data, and the legal supervision is data supervision .

If you do not have the data, it is impossible to carry out judicial proceedings, and legal supervision is impossible. But if the data is untrue, it will be a disaster for judicial cases and legal supervision. For the traditional theory of evidence, it is often the case that after the case occurs, the “investigation and evidence collection” is carried out. According to the objective materialist theory, the world is objectively and universally related. The truth of the case is restored through the post-investigation “investigation and evidence collection”. Feasible, but the cost of doing so is very high, and the complexity of the world also makes it easy to make mistakes in the path of knowing things (think of those false and wrong). In today's era of faster and more progressive life, high costs are hard to afford (Imagine like the criminal police decades ago, walking around the streets one by one? Is there so much police force? ?), the risk of doing the wrong case is even more unaffordable! The same is true for legal supervision. When the procuratorate started the public interest litigation work, the power seemed to be surplus, but with the recent deepening and spreading of the work, We find that it is far from enough. In many cases, if there is no "off-the-shelf" evidence, it is almost impossible to complete the task by going back to the facts through "investigation and evidence collection." This is like, if the debtor is not allowed to write the owe beforehand, he will directly lend the cash, and afterwards it will be blamed. After the creditor weighs the cost and the loss of the lawsuit, the lawyer can only admit that he is unlucky.

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As the extent of the use of information technology in society as a whole continues to increase, perhaps we should change the notion of treating legal evidence – from “after-the-fact forensics” to “synchronized deposit” .

The so-called "synchronized deposit certificate" means that when an objective thing occurs, it is recorded as electronic data by means of information technology, and records of big data, full data, and fine data are made. Thus, once a case occurs, it can be directly Search for the evidence needed in the vast ocean of data. In fact, we have already done this, and have become accustomed to it, urban surveillance cameras are the best example. A friend once forgot his mobile phone in a taxi and found the police with hope. But unfortunately, the drop-off location was a blind spot for the camera. The police can only regret to inform that there is nothing to do. This is a counterexample to the absence of "synchronized deposit certificates", and the successful use of "synchronized deposit certificates" to break the big case and resolve the contradictions is a common practice in various legal TV programs.

Well, the problem is coming. The traditional "ex-post evidence" must ensure the authenticity of evidence in the process of acquisition, preservation and circulation, and it is necessary to follow a series of legal procedural rules. Then, for "synchronized deposit certificate", what is used to ensure the generation of evidence, The authenticity of the storage and retrieval process?

We can certainly say that relying on a series of laws and regulations to build a nuanced authenticity fortress, but the question is, how can operators prove to others at low cost? The city camera data managed by the public security organs, the user terminal data collected by the 360 ​​company, the business system data of the manufacturing enterprise, the supply channels of the traders and the profit financial data. These are either state secrets, trade secrets, or personal privacy. In order to prove that the secret data is well preserved in the box, it is the most stupid way to open the box. So, is there a way to prove that I have a treasure without opening the box and keep it well?

The answer is yes, this is the blockchain technology. Blockchain is an information technology that ensures data is not tamperable. The main support is cryptography and distributed network technology. Using blockchain technology, we can do a "Zero-Knowledge Proof" that enables a verifier to believe that a assertion is correct without providing any useful information to the verifier. By using this technology, state organs, enterprises, institutions, and individuals that carry out simultaneous deposits and certificates can prove the authenticity of the evidence stored without revealing the information of the stored data.

Our assumption is that whether it is a state secret, a trade secret, or a personal privacy, if it is not leaked, it proves that it has been properly preserved according to the law, and it proves that it has not been tampered with. At that time, the evidence will be changed to be beneficial to oneself. This is a classic self-interested assumption; in the process of handling public interest litigation cases, the positions of the lakeshore baselines issued by four different units are different, but this is alive. The example), then, need to access an authoritative blockchain in a standardized form of technology.

As far as the position of the procuratorate is concerned, in order to complete the historical mission of the four major procuratorial work of the new era, the "authoritative blockchain" system that we need to establish can be named as "legal supervision chain", and all the data that we hope to prove its simultaneous verification The authenticity and hope that the terminals of the units, groups and individuals that will be identified as evidence in the judicial process can join the node. For the data on these terminals, they are generated, in addition to being stored as usual, a hash value (data fingerprint) is generated, and the hash value is periodically uploaded to the "legal supervision chain". The move means that solid and reliable information technology has endorsed the authenticity of the relevant data.

The use of blockchain technology for data synchronization and deposit can effectively reduce the cost of trust between different entities .

In the future, for criminal proceedings, defense lawyers no longer have to question the fragmentation of the law enforcement recorder to be taken out of context because the supervision from the chain is continuous.

In civil litigation, the evidence of contradiction between the two defendants is mutually exclusive, and the situation in which judges are difficult to decide will be greatly reduced. The rules of evidence in the future are likely to be improved as follows: Anyone who does not have an identity on the chain is false by default because Supervision from the chain is habitual.

For administrative litigation, the complicated administrative regulations and the list of government duties and responsibilities will help to enhance the government's credibility, because the supervision from the chain is open.

For the inspection of public interest litigation, we have successfully experimented with the inclusion of satellite remote sensing data in the scope of simultaneous deposits. In the past year, we have provided critical evidence for more than 30 public interest litigation cases in the country because of supervision from the chain. It is authoritative.

In the face of these scattered illustrations scattered around, we still can't get a glimpse of the whole picture of a better future. However, the new evidence concept of changing from “after-the-fact evidence” to “synchronized deposit” is undoubtedly supposed to be established. The origin, the use of blockchain technology to build a data-supervised system of legal supervision, and then the establishment and development of a "legal supervision chain" should be a shortcut to our future "four major inspections."

Author | Zhao Zhigang Cai Xin

Source| Legal Daily

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