The Market Size Workshop took place in Rome, Italy, on 10-11 December 2015. It was an occasion to discuss and integrate the mentioned map, identifying also further relevant obstacles and facilitating factors towards the full introduction of electronic evidence in courts, and suggesting strategies and policies in this field, within the framework of the Road Map to be developed by the EVIDENCE project.
All the participants in the workshop were invited to share their knowledge and experience, and according to the specific working session, in which they might give a presentation, were invited to:
- deal with the social phenomena identified by the map, and to provide their specific point of view about their existence and relevance;
- express their points of view about the relationship between the social phenomena identified by the map, and other relevant phenomena having a legal or technical nature;
- provide suggestions about possible further obstacles and facilitating factors;
- identify future research avenues;
- suggest possible strategies to cope with the problems identified, both in the map, and in the discussion during the workshop.
The workshop was attended by 36 people, representing organizations based in eight European countries (Austria, Bulgaria, Germany, Italy, Malta, the Netherlands, Spain, the United Kingdom) and some international bodies.
After a session introducing the EVIDENCE project, the workshop continued with presentations on the need to change the way we think about evidence and electronic evidence (and the difficult passage from paper to electronics), and therefore the need to change approaches and procedures, and the electronic evidence "social arena" (the actors directly or indirectly involved in the management and governance of electronic evidence) and the map of 40 obstacles and 21 facilitating factors for the collection, preservation and exchange of electronic evidence. Experts communicated over the obstacles and open issues on the introduction of ICT and electronic evidence in trials and further continued with panel discussions on facilitating experiences and practices towards their introduction in courts addressing the experience of Austria, Italy and EuroJust.
The workshop ended with a session in which the participants were divided into four small discussion groups dedicated to: governance, human resources, technological environment, norms and data protection. Each group, on the basis of a reflection on the results of the workshop, presented some conclusions on issues and strategic proposals for the future development of the electronic evidence field.