The Dean Kitchin Circle: “Can We Trust Digital Evidence?” by Professor Peter Sommer
St Catherine’s College is delighted to announce the fourth webinar in the Hilary Edition of ‘Catz in Conversation’, our all-new webinar series by alumni, for everyone. This fourth webinar is our annual Dean Kitchin Circle webinar – open exclusively to those who have pledged, or expressed an interest in pledging, a legacy gift to Catz.
Professor Peter Sommer (1961, Law) will deliver a fascinating online lecture on Can We Trust Digital Evidence?
Abstract
Professor Peter Sommer FRS (1961, Law) will explore the question ‘Can we trust digital evidence?’, a topic of ever-greater significance in the age of technology. Today, over nine in ten criminal trials now feature some form of digital evidence – from smartphones and personal computers to network traffic and corporate systems, Peter has significant experience as an expert legal witness of analysing and evaluating these digital trails. Drawing on both theory and war stories from his decades as a prominent digital forensics expert, Peter will examine the strengths and limitations of evidence derived from digital devices, the challenges of its collection and interpretation, and the assumptions often made about its reliability in court and policy-making.
Attendees can expect an engaging blend of conceptual insights and real-world examples that will illuminate how digital evidence shapes justice in the twenty-first century.
We warmly invite our legators and legacy enquirers to attend the annual Dean Kitchin Circle webinar. Following the success of Professor Eleanor Stride’s online lecture in 2025, this event is open exclusively to those who have pledged, or expressed interest in pledging, a legacy gift to St Catherine’s College.
We will be joined by our Legacy Giving Manager, Lucie Thorpe Spickova, who will speak briefly about the process and impact of legacy giving at Catz. Lasting 45 minutes and followed by a live audience Q&A, this talk offers an accessible yet expert introduction to how digital evidence is created, collected and contested, and why it plays such a decisive role in modern justice.
Professor Peter Sommer FRSA (1961, Law) is a Visiting Professor of Digital Forensics at Birmingham City University and a Visiting Professor at the de Montfort University Cyber Security Centre, where he works on issues at the intersection of digital evidence, law, policy and technical implementation. He is a Fellow of the British Computer Society and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Across an impressive career spanning more than three decades, he has combined academic research, expert witness practice, consultancy and public policy advisory work to examine how data from digital devices and systems is collected, interpreted and used in legal and societal contexts.
After Catz, his subsequent research and teaching in information systems and cybersecurity haven taken Peter to organisations including the London School of Economics, the Open University, and the Defence Academy. He has acted as a Specialist Advisor to Parliamentary Select Committees and also served on the Government Scientific Advisory Panel for Emergency Response (SAPER), the predecessor of SAGE.
Professor Sommer has acted as an expert witness in numerous criminal and civil cases where digital evidence is central, covering issues such as terrorism, fraud, and complex technical disputes in international and UK court circuits. He has served on advisory groups for the Forensic Science Regulator.
He is the author, now under his own name, of Digital Evidence, Digital Investigations and E-Disclosure and The Digital Evidence Handbook. Under the pseudonym Hugo Cornwall, he has written The Hacker’s Handbook and DataTheft.
Outside of his academic and advisory work, he writes, consults, and speaks widely on digital evidence and the implications of digital technology for law and society.
Date
25 March, 2026
Time
18.00
Venue
Online, via Zoom
Price
Free