The Procedural Construction of Obtaining Readings from Technical Devices and Technical Means: Systemic Contradictions and Functional Capacity

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to determine the functional role of the procedural mechanism established by Article 245-1 of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine within the system of criminal evidence, to identify its internal structural contradictions, and to assess its practical effectiveness in the digital environment of criminal proceedings. The methodological basis of the research includes systemic-structural, systemic-activity, formal-legal, and praxeological methods. The study is based on the analysis of Ukrainian criminal procedural legislation, judicial practice of the Supreme Court, and the approaches developed in the case law of the European Court of Human Rights concerning interference with private life in the context of video surveillance and the collection of digital information. The study demonstrates that the procedure for obtaining data from technical devices constitutes a hybrid procedural construction aimed at transforming digital information from its original technical environment into a procedurally stabilised evidentiary object. It establishes that the effectiveness of this procedural mechanism substantially depends on the conduct of the owner or holder of the technical device, while key technological operations are delegated to a third party outside the investigator’s direct procedural control. The article identifies structural and praxeological defects of the corresponding legal model, including the absence of an effective mechanism for compulsory execution of the investigator’s order, uncertainty regarding the concept of a publicly accessible place, limited possibilities of procedural control over the copying of digital data, and insufficient regulation of mechanisms for verifying the integrity and authenticity of digital information. The research further substantiates that the examined procedural mechanism has not formed an autonomous and functionally complete model for obtaining digital evidence in criminal proceedings and remains in functional competition with general methods of collecting evidence under Article 93 of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine. The scientific novelty of the study consists in identifying the internal functional instability of the procedural construction established by Article 245-1 of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine, which results from the combination, within a single mechanism, of elements of obtaining digital information, its technical extraction, and its procedural stabilisation as an evidentiary object. The practical significance of the study lies in the possibility of using its conclusions to improve criminal procedural legislation on digital evidence, develop unified procedural standards for verifying and stabilising digital information, and optimise practical approaches to obtaining video data and other digital materials during pre-trial investigation.