Forensic examination a must in the digital age

(Reprinted with permission from the Indian Express, January 14, 2001)

Forensic examination a must in the digital age

By Jaya Jaitly

For the first time in India an inquiry commission has been set up based on material provided by videotapes. These have been made by so-called investigative journalists in the domain of website communication. Most people inIndia are yet to understand the intricacies of digital technology

Technology has leapfrogged over knowledge, laws and journalistic ethics and the issue of the use and misuse of technology in this field must be tackled urgently. The Justice Venkataswami Commission inquiring into various aspects of the Tehelka tapes as an excellent opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. By having the tapes forensically examined by impartial experts for veracity and also examining the ethics of making allegations against a number of people and broadcasting these within minutes, without undergoing the rigorous process of providing corroborative evidence, the Commission can create corrective mechanisms in this new world of information technology.

According to conventional wisdom, tapes are adequate evidence of truth."The camera does not lie" and "seeing is believing" are the old cliches of those who believe the Tehelka team is a bunch of heroes. These people will watch TV everyday and see advertisements in which a black-haired lady will turn into a blonde, and cartoon lions will speak like humans. All these creative"realities" have been made possible because of the marvels of digital technology. So, seeing is no longer believing because the computer is often manipulated to lie. Old-fashioned dubbing meant that Lata Mangeshkar sang while Madhuri Dixit mouthed the words with perfect lip synchronisation.

Every film-maker, editor, sound engineer, cameraman, TV programme producer and digital technologist knows words can be added, deleted, superimposed and scenes interchanged, cut, rearranged. All this is a part ofacceptable film-making but it cannot be a part of investigative journalism. Journalists are supposed to produce the truth rather than create a "story", allowing for fiction to creep in. As far back as 1964 the Supreme Court ruled in the Kairon case that tapes (then only audio, but would now obviously include video) cannot be accepted as primary evidence. Various subsequent judgements have reiterated that the only way tapes can be used as primary evidence is if their authenticity is first verified. In the Verma Commission inquiring into Rajiv Gandhi¿s assassination the videotapes of cameraman Haribabu were sent for forensic examination abroad. The more digital technology advances the more it is specifically geared for creative manipulation; therefore the absolute need for forensic examination before the material contained within those tapes is examined or used as evidence or even as a basis for an inquiry.

A film-maker and editing expert showed the Venkataswami Commission how Bangaru Laxman can be shown opening his drawer and taking out Rs 1 lakh and giving it to the Tehelka man on his request for help as his chairman was in difficulty. The very same voices, the very words they had spoken, the very same visual (only reversed) were all put together to tell a completely different story!

The original filming was on H18 tape with AFM sound in which the audio and video cannot be separated. It was then transferred to a digital system where the audio track can be separated and changed around and all finally put back on a H18 tape. Only a forensic expert testing the tape with specialised equipment would be able to tell whether the second tape was an original or not and whether it had been meddled with. Until then, who is to say which of the two tapes was true, and who alone can find out the truth but a forensic expert?

The Tehel