Smart platform helps prove digital evidence genuine

A smart platform based on blockchain technologies that made its debut in Shanghai in January has been acclaimed by individuals, enterprises and lawyers involved in lawsuits for its ability solve the problem of proving the authenticity of digital evidence.

Through specific functions on the platform, people can take pictures and video clips using smartphones or computers, and upload and save them on the platform set up by Shanghai's Xuhui district notary public office affiliated with the district's justice bureau.

With the help of blockchain technologies, the platform can collect, fix, and save the evidence with technological support from digital signatures, time stamps and hash algorithms, to ensure the legitimacy and effectiveness of the legal proof and its relevance to a lawsuit.

Pan Hao, director of the Xuhui district notary public office, explained that when evidence, such as a picture or a video clip, is taken through the platform – which is in the form of a smartphone app -- the exact longitude and latitude of the location where it is taken is recorded, and a unique hash index is created by the system for this specific evidence to ensure its authenticity and uniqueness.

Zeng Zhen, an attorney from the Waston and Band Law Firm, said that evidence plays a crucial role in a lawsuit and how the evidence is collected usually determines its efficacy in a lawsuit.

"However, it's often quite hard even for lawyers to prove where and when some photos were taken. Even if we have a time stamp on a photo, the other party involved in the lawsuit may suspect that we've altered the time zone of the smartphone when taking the photo," Zeng said.

"With such a smart app, all these doubts will disappear," she said.

Data from the district notary office showed that evidence in nearly 3,500 lawsuits has been collected through the platform by September, and multiple banks and large-scale trade platforms have relied on it for saving evidence.

Yang Qi, sales director in the East China region for Peersafe, a Beijing-based domestic company specializing in blockchain technologies and the developer of the platform, said that the company will continue upgrading the system based on user needs and expand its application scenarios.

"Several other districts in Shanghai have also shown an interest in building such a smart platform for lawsuit evidence collection and verification, and similar facilities are also being developed for other regions, including Fujian province's Xiamen city, Anhui province's Hefei city, Guangdong province's Shenzhen city, and Beijing's Chaoyang district," he said.