Rethinking Digital Forensics Governance in the Continental European Legal System: A Proposed Statutory Model for an Independent Digital Forensics Authority

Abstract

The exponential growth of cloud-computing infrastructures, cross-border dynamic data flows, end-to- end encrypted communication protocols, and Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystems has placed digital evidence at the center of modern criminal and civil proceedings (Casey, 2011; Horsman, 2020). However, in many countries adhering to the Continental European legal tradition, including Turkey, procedural practices continue to rely on law enforcement centered legal frameworks designed for the needs of an earlier technological era (Dülger, 2022; Sieber, 2014). This structural dependence creates significant vulnerabilities with respect to institutional impartiality, equality of arms (armes égales), the integrity of the chain of custody, and compliance with fundamental rights (European Court of Human Rights, 1993; Carrier, 2005). To address these systemic bottlenecks, this study proposes a comprehensive legislative framework: a Draft Digital Forensics Act and an autonomous Digital Forensics Authority (DFA) endowed with public legal personality, to be established under the proposed legislation (Demirci, 2026). Evaluated in light of the Convention on Cybercrime (Budapest Convention), the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and ISO/IEC 27037 standards (ISO & IEC, 2012; European Parliament & Council of the European Union, 2016), the proposed model seeks to align complex digital investigations with the right to a fair trial guaranteed by Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) (European Court of Human Rights, 1993; Trechsel, 2006) through standardized technical procedures, statutory safeguards designed to retain qualified specialists within the public sector (Garfinkel, 2010), and a technical review mechanism for expert opinions submitted by the parties (Taruffo, 2003).