In the post-global pandemic era, the digital world has become more complicated and ambiguous, with cyber-criminals lurking in the darkest space of the internet wreaking havoc, scamming people, hacking, pillaging, and concealing from authorities with virtual camouflage. While the cyberspace community has made significant strides due to existing broad legislations and legal policies, there are still challenges to cyber forensics investigation and evidence acquisition, given interoperability and jurisdictional issues with far- reaching implications in the justice system, data privacy, and security.
The dynamics of Big Data and the Internet of Things (IoTs) challenge the normative structure of the cyber-physical environment towards a greater emphasis on the cyber resilience of States from cyber threats and cyber terrorism that cannot be addressed by legislation alone as digital crimes transcend across space. In this paper, the author proposes a transnational approach to institutionalize a Transnational Cyber Forensic Digital Evidence Pouch (TCFDEP) through a multilateral treaty as a standardized protocol designed to harness the cyber forensic collection, handling, preservation, and audit trail of digital evidence in multipolar stream networks.
The TCFDEP is not just a solution, but a necessity to ensure the accuracy, integrity, and consistency of digital evidence. As a cyber-forensic tool, it is a response to balance privacy rights and law enforcement of authorities, and its institutionalization is essential to managing transnational digital evidence investigation and acquisition on digital artifacts and cyber forensics as a key to guaranteeing digital justice in the global village.