Diplomatic forensics science: historical review for approaching the born-digital archive record

Abstract

Born digital records massively produced at the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st over-passed the limits of documents produced in the history of humanity, risking both their authenticity and their long term preservation. The aim of the present work intends a historical review of Diplomatic and Digital Forensic Sciences, which allows analyzing how the two types of records in question can contribute to verify the authenticity of the born-digital records. The methodology chosen is of a theoretical nature, since we analyze the main exponents of the mentioned areas and their principal methods of study. It is descriptive, because we mention each one of the most relevant contributions in the historical construction of both sciences. The results of this work allow us to argue that both Diplomatic and Digital Forensic Sciences are complementary and analyze and verify the legal, historical and administrative authenticity of born-digital records. In addition they offer methods to preserve these records in the long run. We conclude that it is relevant to study in detail and depth other areas of knowledge with the interest of providing subsidies to strengthening both Diplomatic and Forensic Science for obtaining a better application in born-digital records.