Checklist · Family Law
Checklist: authenticity of digital evidence (messages, recordings, images) and deepfake risk
Checklist for preserving, testing and presenting texts, recordings, photos and videos in family law cases, including AI-generated or altered material, the legality of recordings, and when to brief a forensic expert.
- Kind
- Checklist. Steps or checks to work through and tick off.
- Where it applies
- Australia, Commonwealth, New South Wales
- AI use
- Yellow AI can help in set ways. A lawyer checks specific points before use.
- Law stated as at
- 17 October 2026
- Status
- Maintained. Checked against the cited sources on 17 October 2026.
- Version
- 1
- Source
- Written for this library
When to use it
Use when a client gives you digital material to rely on, or when the other party relies on material your client says is fake or altered. Do not use as a substitute for expert forensic analysis where authenticity is genuinely contested.
How AI may be used
AI forensic tools can flag possible manipulation but are not conclusive and are not evidence by themselves. Contested authenticity needs preserved originals, metadata and, where warranted, an independent expert. Lawyers must never use AI to enhance or alter media.
AI may
- Index exported messages and media by date, sender and source device for the lawyer
- Flag inconsistencies between metadata, content and the client's account for the lawyer to investigate
- Run an approved detection tool as a triage step, recording the tool, version and result
AI must not
- Must not enhance, clean up, transcribe-and-replace or otherwise alter any media relied on as evidence (PD-AI para 4.6(b))
- Must not present a detection tool's score as proof that material is genuine or fake
- Must not upload intimate images or children's images to any AI tool
The lawyer checks
- Originals and devices preserved, with a record of who handled them
- Whether a recording was lawfully made under the relevant state law
- Whether expert evidence is needed and how to raise any allegation of AI misuse with the Court
Method: how the Green, Yellow and Red levels are decided. This is guidance for planning, not legal advice.
Read the full text
The full text is for signed-in accounts. It is free. When you sign in you can:
- read the whole precedent, with its drafting notes beside it;
- copy it, or download it as a Word file or Markdown;
- add it to your firm’s knowledge base, so colleagues can find it;
- let the AI tools you connect read it from that knowledge base.
The summary, the law it rests on and the AI-use guidance above stay public. Privacy.
More in Family Law
- Initiating Application (Family Law): completion guide for parenting and financial orders
- Financial Statement (Family Law): completion and disclosure guide
- Binding financial agreement (marriage or de facto) with statement of independent legal advice
- Letter of advice on property settlement (post-10 June 2025 framework) with settlement recommendation
- Client notice: how we use AI, and keeping your family law matter confidential and safe
All precedents for Family Law · Tasks and AI use in this area