The new controversial Security Law (Amendment) 2014 Act, signed by the president last year, allows for electronic and digital evidence to be admissible in court proceedings. The amendment act seeks to add or alter previous laws to enable the country to combat the growing terrorism threat.

Section 31 of the amendment act outlines rules and guidelines on how electronic evidence will be presented to the court.

The section reads: "In any legal proceedings, electronic messages and digital material shall be admissible as evidence."

The law requires that the evidence be presented to it in its original form and puts weight on how it has been handled.

It further states that, "Electronic and digital evidence generated by a person in the ordinary course of business, or a copy or printout of or an extract from the electronic and digital evidence certified to be correct by a person in the service of such person, is on its mere production in any civil, criminal, administrative or disciplinary proceedings under any law, the rules of a selfregulatory organization or any other law or the common law, admissible in evidence against any person and rebuttable proof of the facts contained in such record, copy, printout or extract."

However Tom Makau, a telecommunications consultant and chief technology officer at Imarasat Mauritius, says more needs to be done in securing such information.

"Our crime prevention and detection systems and processes are archaic to say the least. The utilization of technology will require trained and qualified people for it to work. One of the reasons why most cybercrime related evidence or online evidence like email/website/blog screenshots are not accepted in court is they are collected by unqualified people like private detectives or aggrieved parties," Makau told ITWeb Africa.

"You need a digital forensic expert or auditor to capture even a screenshot for it to be admissible in court. So, yes, training to international standards is important. Not anyone can present an autopsy report done on a body in court other than a trained and licensed forensic pathologist, yet the same is not true for digital forensics as there is no clear guideline on who is qualified to do it. Training is therefore important," he added.

Section 30 of the same Act also details the process of having teleconferencing in the administration of justice in Kenyan courts. The Chief Justice, who is the president of the Supreme Court, will be tasked to set out rules on how the technology will work.