Hacker evidence admissible in court?

New Zealand is considering making evidence gathered by a hacker admissible as evidence in court, raising the spectre of vigilante hackers.

A bill to be introduced to New Zealand's Parliament early next year will clarify the legal status of evidence of an offence gained by hacking, as well as other evidence collected through illegal acts.

Evidence of electronic or any other crime gathered by a hacker illegally intruding into a suspect's computer system would probably be admissible in a New Zealand court, according to lawyers and Police e-crime unit chief Maarten Kleintjes.

But one lawyer has acknowledged the risk of vigilantes hacking into systems in the hope that any detected crime would be serious enough for the hack to be seen as a lesser offense not worth prosecuting.

Such evidence would be subject to the same guidelines as evidence coming from any other informant where the illegal nature of the act of gathering such evidence may not rule it out, say the sources. But the principles governing such a judgement are purely case law at present.

Government officials are working on a new bill amending the Evidence Act, which aims to make such questions as admissibility of illegally obtained evidence a matter of statute law. At the same time, the Law Commission is drafting a paper on rights of entry, search and seizure, which has been delayed until next year to consider more fully the issues presented by new technology. This could well include further thoughts on the acceptability of hacking, said Commissioner Warren Young, though a previous Law Commission paper forms the basis of the planned Evidence Act amendment bill. This could be tabled early next year, he said.