Acknowledgments

As always, I thank the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies for continuing to renew my Associate Research Fellowship (since 2003), which has permitted me unlimited use of the IALS Library and Information Services, and to those members of staff who have unfailingly helped me when I have not been able to find what I was looking for. In addition, I thank the members of staff of the library at the Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, who kindly helped me during the pandemic when travelling to London to visit the library in person was not an easy option.

Chapter 5, ‘The presumption that computers are “reliable”’, has been modestly updated. I thank the following for reviewing the text:

I also thank Daniel for reviewing the chapter, putting me right where I missed points or failed to more fully understand. I appreciate the time that each of those mentioned above has given to consider and enhance the text. The discussion is vastly improved because of their comments, observations and corrections, and I have continued to adopt the vast majority of their recommendations. Nevertheless, any faults are mine.

I continue to remain indebted to Dr John Mitchell of LHS Business Control Limited and Professor Fred Piper, now an Honorary Member of the Information Security Group, previously of the Department of Mathematics, Royal Holloway College, University of London, both of whom reviewed the technical chapters of digital signatures for the first edition of Electronic Signatures in Law in 2003, now incorporated into this text. I also thank Alan Liddle, Director, DCS Consulting and Dr Arnis Parsovs, a researcher at the University of Tartu, Estonia, who have kindly provided me with further helpful technical comments relating to digital signatures. I remain responsible for the text.

My thanks also to Daniel and Bev Littlewood, Emeritus Professor of Software Engineering, Centre for Software Reliability, City, University of London for their comments on the various versions of the vignette I worked on for this edition.

As I step down from this text and hand over the responsibility to Daniel, I take this opportunity to thank the Laura Ashley Foundation (now the Ashley Family Foundation) for awarding me a grant of £500 in November 1986 towards the cost of travel and books when I was accepted by City University to take the Diploma in Law. I also thank the London Borough of Redbridge for providing me with a discretionary grant of £2,330 to enable me to take the Vocational Court for the Bar at the Inns of Court School of Law. This covered the cost of the course and a payment towards living expenses.

I would also like to mention that John Gregory and Thomas J. Smedinghoff each monitor and run mailing lists (John: e-communications law and policy, listed at the University of Ottawa: ulc_ecomm-l (@listserv.uottawa.ca), and Tom: American Bar Association, Business Law Section, Identity Management Legal Task Force) for those interested in matters pertaining to electronic communications and policy in general terms. I thank both John and Tom for their friendship over the years and for running these lists, and I thank all of those who have contributed to and have raised questions about policies, legislation and case law during the years that I have been part of these lists. I have benefitted from the discussions that have taken place, and I have gained insights that are often specific to a particular jurisdiction.

I also thank the School of Law, University of Tartu in Estonia for appointing me Visiting Lecturer, where I have had the privilege of teaching with Tõnu Mets on the LLM between 2017 and 2021, and to the Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore, for appointing me Visiting Professor to teach in January 2021.

My thanks to Burkhard, who has kindly added to his commitments by contributing to this text since the second edition, especially in helping to develop the intellectual framework for analysing electronic evidence; to Alisdair, whose knowledge of the landscape of criminal activity is of great help; to Andrew and Hein who have, over the years, discussed technology with me and kindly alleviated my ignorance when I ask what appear to be simple or silly questions (of course, no question is silly – it is the answer that might be stupid). Also to Allison, who, like me, cannot understand why the legal profession ignores this topic. Allison agreed to be a joint editor with me of the Digital Evidence and Electronic Signature Law Review, and I thank her for her support over the years.

It has been a pleasure to work with Daniel and our fellow authors in successive editions of this text. I thank all of the authors, past and present, for agreeing to take part in exploring the nuances of electronic evidence – so relevant for today’s world. If we are fortunate, we meet people whom we trust to offer guidance and advice, and to improve our understanding of the topics we write and speak about. For me, Nicholas Bohm and Timothy S. Reiniger, Esq are two such people. I have always been able to approach Nicholas and Tim in the certain knowledge that I can rely on their sound judgment. I thank them both for their friendship and willingness to listen and advise.

In a similar way, I have had the great good fortune to know Daniel for many years now. Daniel is a friend, and I appreciate his willingness to critically explore my more recherché ideas over the years, and to gently correct me when I get something wrong. I thank him sincerely for his willingness to join me as a joint editor for the fourth and fifth editions, and for his commitment to take on responsibility for the text in the future.

I remain thankful to my wife, Penelope, for her forbearance over the editions.

Daniel

I first wish to thank Professor Colin Tapper of Oxford University for setting me on the path to scholarship in evidence law. As a Rupert Cross scholar and an eternally indebted student of Professor Tapper, who was one of the first scholars in the Commonwealth to conduct a systematic examination of the issues of electronic evidence, I have always looked to his concise scholarship and his legal precision as guidance and inspiration for my own writings.

I also wish to thank my wife, Xu Le, for her patience, understanding and support as I worked on this text.

And finally, I wish to thank Stephen for his friendship, generosity and kindness in granting me the extraordinary privilege to be his co-editor, and to expand my authorial contributions in the various chapters of this treatise on electronic evidence. It is both a joy and an honour to be in the aura of Stephen’s indefatigable enthusiasm, intellectual acuity, receptiveness to new ideas and statesmanship that made this entire treatise possible. In continuing my involvement with this treatise since the first edition, I have personally benefited much from Stephen’s mentorship and his willingness to share his thoughts, his research and his scholarship with me. Although Stephen claims that this will be the last edition he will be involved in, I have never ruled out the possibility of persuading him to join me for the next. To use the words of the great Helen Keller, in our journey to elucidate the complexities of electronic evidence, I would rather walk with a friend in the dark, than alone in the light.

Joint

We thank Chris Gallavin, Professor of Law and Deputy pro-Chancellor at Massey University for his work for this text, having taken responsibility for the chapter on New Zealand from the second edition, and the lead in the chapter on hearsay for the fourth edition. Chris was not able to take part in this edition because of the extent of his commitments.

We also thank Dr George R. S. Weir, Computer and Information Sciences, University of Strathclyde for taking part in the third and fourth editions. Unfortunately, because of the lack of time during the 2020 pandemic, George was not able to continue with the project.

We appreciate those authors who have joined us in this edition: uniquely Professor Luciana Duranti has been President of the Society of American Archivists (in the late 1990s) and the Association of Canadian Archivists (2016–2018); Dr Nigel Wilson, who, as we updated the text, was appointed Director, Market Regulation, Government and Conveyance at Water Find Pty Ltd, and Professor Steven J. Murdoch, who is also a bye-fellow of Christ’s College, Innovation Security Architect at the OneSpan Innovation Center, a member of the Tor Project, and a Fellow of the IET and BCS (Steven was the expert for Mr Job, working pro bono, whom Stephen represented, also pro bono, in Job v Halifax PLC (not reported) Case number 7BQ00307 (judgment published in the Digital Evidence and Electronic Signature Law Review 6 (2009) 235–245)).

We mention that Lynne Townley is a PhD candidate at City, University of London on the topic of The RECOGNITION and development of ‘Honour Crime’ Policy and Practice in England and Wales. Her supervisors are Professor Andrew Choo, City University of London, and Assistant Professor Mara Maligodi, Faculty of Law, Chinese University of Hong Kong. Jessica Shurston is a PhD candidate at Queen Mary, University of London, on the topic of Legal Jurisdiction and the Globalization of Evidence: A Theory of Data Sovereignty for Law Enforcement Access to Data across Borders. Her supervisors are Professor Ian Walden and Professor Julia Hörnle.

We thank all of our other authors for staying with the text and working on it, although their workload increased during the pandemic: Allison, Alisdair, Andrew, Burkhard and Hein; your continuing to take part in the book is greatly appreciated. You have collectively helped to make this book what we aspire it to be.

Finally, our thanks to Sandy Dutczak, the IALS Digital Projects and Publications Manager at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, who has seen this text through the publishing process, together with Lorraine Slipper (copyeditor), Jamie Bowman (production controller) and Robert Davies (project editor) – for which we give our additional thanks. We also thank Steven Whittle, predecessor to Sandy Dutczak, who was instrumental in the formation of the SAS Humanities Digital Library.