Metadata as the formation of a digital footprint in the study of interventions in digital photographic images

This article discusses the importance of forming digital footprints when changing metadata in the context of forensic phototechnical examination. In the light of the growth of computer crimes, digital footprints are becoming an urgent object of research, which is emphasized by the analysis of the achievements of forensic photography. The study identifies metadata such as: the author of the file, the device of photographing, the name of the file, the date and place of shooting, the date of modification or editing of the file, the name of the editing program, as well as other data that can be used to conduct a judicial investigation. The Adobe Photoshop program was used to edit the photos. The Foto Forensics website was used to analyze the error level. MD5&SHAChecksumUtility 2.1 software was used to calculate hash values. As a result of the work, it was revealed that the metadata of the original photographs does not match the metadata of the edited images. It is important to continue to explore and develop approaches to working with metadata, taking into account both their potential and the risks associated with their use.