Since anyone can put anything they want on their servers, it seems like a lot of evidence could be thrown out in court cases if access to that information is not strictly monitored and audited to make sure the owners aren’t removing or adding data.
Does anyone know of industry-standard practices to ensure that data on servers is not being manipulated in a way to protect or harm users?
Expanding on some of the other answers…
A court in the US or UK is going to look and act a lot different than courts in, like, Thailand or India or whatever.
But taking the US as an example, both sides will get a copy of relevant data, and whichever side wants to allege tampering will hire an expert to try to make that case to the judge or jury. The court itself doesn’t verify any evidence. Both sides present their version, and the jury decides what happens - with the prosecution in a criminal trial having a higher burden of proof, at least in theory.
Being from a country with an inquisutory justice system where a judge oversee the investigation it seems crazy to me that the court doesn’t verify the evidences