Evidence Act 2006

Trial process - Documentary evidence and evidence produced by machine, device, or technical process - General and special rules

137: Evidence produced by machine, device, or technical process

You could also call this:

"Using evidence made by machines or computers in court"

When you are in court, you might see evidence that was made by a machine or a device. If someone says a machine did something, like scanned a document, you can assume it did what they say it did, unless someone proves otherwise. The machine must be the kind that usually works the way the person says it does.

If some information is stored in a way that you need a machine to see it, someone can show the court a document that the machine helped make. This can happen when the machine is used to show, get, or sort out the information. You can use this document as evidence in court.

This text is automatically generated. It might be out of date or be missing some parts. Find out more about how we do this.

This page was last updated on 29 June 2025

View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM393979.

Topics:

Crime and justice > Courts and legal help

136: Proof of signatures on attested documents, or

"How to prove someone signed an important document"

138: Authenticity of public documents, or

"How to know if a public document is real and can be used as evidence"

Part 3Trial process
Documentary evidence and evidence produced by machine, device, or technical process: General and special rules

137Evidence produced by machine, device, or technical process

If a party offers evidence that was produced wholly or partly by a machine, device, or technical process (for example, scanning) and the machine, device, or technical process is of a kind that ordinarily does what a party asserts it to have done, it is presumed that on a particular occasion the machine, device, or technical process did what that party asserts it to have done, in the absence of evidence to the contrary.
If information or other matter is stored in such a way that it cannot be used by the court unless a machine, device, or technical process is used to display, retrieve, produce, or collate it, a party may offer a document that was or purports to have been displayed, retrieved, or collated by use of the machine, device, or technical process.