Blockchain-Applied Judicial Alliance for Digital Era Increases Credibility of Digital Evidence

While the rapid development of technology has made people’s lives more comfortable, it has also led to increasingly sophisticated crimes. As the guardian of the rule of law, the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) has continued to embrace digital transformation in recent years, harnessing the power of technology to strengthen its crime detection capabilities. The Blockchain-Applied Judicial Alliance for the Digital Era (b-JADE) was launched in mid-2022, leveraging the IT infrastructure of the National Center for High-Performance Computing (NCHC) to provide digital evidence with a higher level of credibility and at the same time reduce legal costs.

Justice Minister Ching-Hsiang Tsai warned that the rise of digital technologies will inevitably bring new challenges to Taiwan’s law enforcement and legal systems. He further explained that there are currently three different types of criminal evidence – traditional, digital and cloud evidence. Digital evidence is characterized by the fact that it can be easily tampered with or recovered, making verification of its integrity a serious problem. Currently, there are two challenges in verifying the integrity of digital evidence. First, digital evidence is easy to tamper with or forge. Even after an investigation by the authority, its authenticity cannot be readily ascertained. Second, the process of verifying digital evidence is time-consuming and requires a significant amount of court time. Especially for complex cases, such a process can take even longer.

In response to the National Conference on Justice Reform, the decentralized nature of blockchain gives more credibility to evidence

b-JADE is a concrete response to the resolutions from the plenary meeting of the National Conference on Judicial Reform regarding evidence preservation. It aims to create a more comprehensive and thorough system for evidence custody and evidence retention after conviction. Currently, the Department of Prosecutorial Affairs of the MOJ serves as the secretarial unit for b-JADE to work with other agencies to establish a digital evidence custody system. b-JADE ensures the credibility of evidence by maintaining a tight and unbroken chain of custody, with blockchain technology playing a key role in this process.

During Tsai’s tenure as director general of the MOJ’s investigative agency in 2019, cryptocurrency laundering cases saw a steady increase. The agency was then asked to investigate such criminal acts further and find ways to seize digital evidence. It was quickly noted that the underlying technology of cryptocurrency is blockchain. Tsai therefore realized that the legal system could also leverage the decentralized, immutable and perpetual nature of blockchain technology to verify whether digital evidence has been tampered with to meet the courts’ authenticity requirements.

b-JADE, whose underlying technology is blockchain technology, was established by five different founding members: the Judicial Yuan, the MOJ, the Taiwan High Prosecutor Office, the National Policy Agency of the Ministry of the Interior, and the Investigation Bureau. Tsai emphasized that these five basic institutions cover the entire process of handling evidence – from its collection by judicial police, to authentication, verification and final presentation in court. In addition to complying with existing chain of custody procedures, each institution must also deposit digital evidence in b-JADE. This proof is then simultaneously recorded and jointly verified by five blockchain nodes.

Unlike other public and private blockchains, b-JADE adopts a system architecture of a consortium blockchain, with five main functions. All participants are members of b-JADE, which can benefit from the semi-centralized structure, transparency of information, consensus management, as well as optimal efficiency and cost of evidence management. These five features greatly improve both the credibility and management efficiency of evidence. Tsai also pointed out that the NCHC played a key role in the establishment of b-JADE, making many recommendations during its establishment.

The first step in the establishment of b-JADE was to reach a consensus among the members. Afterwards, with the assistance of the Science and Technology Law Institute, members are awarded the b-JADE mark, which gives them the mandate and capabilities to collaboratively formulate the digital standards. The next step was to leverage the expertise and experience of NCHC to build an appropriate IT infrastructure. Tsai said there are currently five members using b-JADE, and as the operating mechanism matures, the number will increase in the future. Therefore, the underlying IT infrastructure must be robust and flexible enough.

Leverage the expertise and experience of NCHC to build a highly resilient b-JADE

Previously, NCHC had successfully implemented Blockchain for Smart Campuses Pilot Program in Taichung City, personnel reward and punishment decree of the General Directorate of Personnel Administration of the Executive Yuan, anti-forgery and electronic document storage of the Department of Information Technology of the Judicial Yuan, and the electronics research logbook and blockchain-integrated system for National Applied Research Laboratories (NARLabs). NCHC’s expertise and experience are therefore well recognized by the members of b-JADE. Throughout the process of promoting b-JADE, the NCHC team also fully demonstrated its many years of experience in cross-industry and cross-departmental collaboration. The initial proof of concept (POC) was performed by establishing two mock nodes for the Investigation Bureau and MOJ, and connecting to a mock outsourced node from NCHC. After a successful test run, the framework was expanded, and the entire b-JADE was established.

In addition to technological expertise and experience in the implementation of IT systems, there was another consideration for collaborating with NCHC, that is, if b-JADE was funded and maintained solely by one government agency, its control would undoubtedly rest only with the agency. Therefore, a system architecture for a consortium blockchain was chosen. In this system, individual agencies can set up blockchain nodes, with each agency bearing the cost of maintaining them individually. Then, considering the setup and maintenance costs, the agencies can tap into NCHC’s infrastructure and deploy the nodes. This can increase the number of participating members and thereby increase the system’s credibility, which will meet the goal of establishing high credibility for b-JADE.

Regarding the future, short-, medium- and long-term goals have been formulated for b-JADE. The short-term goals are to establish an infrastructure plan, assess the urgent need for digital evidence verification in legal practice, carry out a pilot evaluation, as well as launch b-JADE personnel certification and carry out blockchain education and training. The aim in the medium term is to promote digital data applications. Finally, the long-term goal is to perform integration with physical evidence.

In addition to increasing the credibility and management efficiency of evidence, b-JADE can also be used in other ways, such as protecting the creative works of the Ministry of Culture or supporting the enforcement of the Trade Secrets Act. Furthermore, it may become more important after the implementation of the Citizen Judges Act, where the courts could order the verification of digital evidence and digital files. In the future, the b-JADE team will proactively assess the need for blockchain technology implementation, and develop complementary legal and technical solutions to achieve a greater legal multiplier effect in the existing legal system and evidence management.

Tsai concluded by reiterating that the MOJ is the guardian of the rule of law and that the system and practices must be updated. As such, he pushed for a “technological” MOJ at the beginning of his term. With the proliferation of cryptocurrency laundering and cybercrime in recent years, the MOJ needs to keep up with changing times by changing legislation. b-JADE is a concrete exhibition of this effort. Tsai believes that the cooperation between two highly competent institutions, i.e. MOJ and NCHC, will lead to a win-win situation for both legal and technological dimensions, and ultimately better protection of internet security and privacy of the people in the digital age.