What is the difference between electronic evidence and traditional evidence?

Legal analysis: Electronic evidence refers to all materials that can prove the facts of a case in electronic form. At present, in judicial practice, we often encounter electronic evidence in the form of short messages, emails and online chats. Compared with other evidence, electronic evidence has the characteristics of high technology and invisibility, easy destruction and insecurity of content, multimedia and complexity, easy preservation, fast dissemination and repeatability.

A correct understanding of the legal nature of electronic evidence is directly related to the collection and authentication of electronic evidence. The type of evidence is the type of evidence determined by legislators in legislation based on the characteristics of various evidence materials, the analysis of the proof function of various evidence materials and the manifestations of evidence materials. Formally speaking, it is based on the external manifestation of evidence materials, while in essence, it is based on the internal characteristics of evidence materials that prove the facts to be proved.

Therefore, it is inappropriate to simply classify electronic evidence as physical evidence, documentary evidence or audio-visual materials, only to realize that some characteristics of electronic evidence in a certain situation cannot reflect the whole of electronic evidence. In our view, what has changed is the change of record carrier from rope to paper to electronic storage. From the point of view of evidence, paper can appear as documentary evidence or material evidence in different situations, which is essentially the same as the various attributes of electromagnetic carriers, except that electromagnetic carriers can also appear as audio-visual materials. Therefore, electronic evidence is not an independent type of evidence, but a mixture of electronic material evidence, e-book evidence and electronic audio-visual materials, which should be taken as the basis when collecting and appraising such evidence.

Legal basis: Article 50 of the Criminal Procedure Law of People's Republic of China (PRC), all materials that can be used to prove the facts of a case are evidence. Evidence includes:

(1) Physical evidence;

(2) Documentary evidence;

(3) Testimony of witnesses;

(4) the victim's statement;

(5) confessions and excuses of criminal suspects and defendants;

(6) Appraisal opinions;

(7) Records of the inquest, inspection, appraisal, investigation and experiment;

(8) Audio-visual materials and electronic data.

The evidence must be verified before it can be used as the basis for finalizing the case.