Artificial intelligence will transform court trials. Can digital evidence be considered reliable today? Challenges for the judiciary in the age of AI.
What may constitute evidence?
- In principle, the law allows any means of establishing the facts to be used as evidence.
- Digital traces such as screenshots or recordings, which courts used to accept without further ado, cannot, however, be automatically regarded as reliable nowadays.
- With the advent of AI, the situation is changing fundamentally, and the stability of digital traces is becoming a thing of the past. The key to the outcome of court proceedings will no longer be merely argumentation, but proving the authenticity of evidence, which may completely overshadow the very substance of the dispute.
Technological and legislative shortcomings in the Czech justice system
The Czech judiciary is not fully prepared for the risks associated with AI-generated forgeries, as the court cannot detect forged or altered evidence on its own and, at the same time, does not have software available to assess whether the evidence was created using artificial intelligence.
Nor has Czech legislation so far responded in any way to the current situation (with the exception of Section 181(2) and Section 191a of Act No. 40/2009 Coll., of the Criminal Code, as amended by Amendment No. 270/2025 Coll., effective from 1 January 2026, which criminalises certain acts associated with the use of AI).
Involvement of court experts
Therefore, if a party to proceedings submits digital evidence (e.g. a recording) and the other party claims that the evidence was generated by AI, the course of the court proceedings may, in some cases, be complicated in the absence of further evidence. It will be necessary to appoint an expert in cybernetics and forensic data analysis, who may or may not determine whether the evidence was created using AI.
Mandatory labelling of AI content and its limitations
Although Article 50(2) of the European AI Act introduces an obligation to identify AI-generated content using watermarks, it is likely that some users will be able to circumvent these measures.
Future success in court proceedings may therefore depend on:
- careful technical preparedness for the analysis of digital evidence;
- securing digital evidence before a dispute arises or immediately thereafter;
- measures to prove that no one tampered with the digital evidence.
Author: Hana Marešová, Associate, Dispute Resolution, LYNX (Czech Republic)
Source:
- Act No. 99/1963 Coll., the Code of Civil Procedure, as amended
- Act No. 40/2009 Coll., the Criminal Code, as amended
- EUR-Lex – 02024R1689-20240712 – EN – EUR-Lex
