Satellite Imagery evidence in legal proceedings is a procedural action that involves conducting investigations and providing expert opinions on issues that require the use of satellite and/or aerial photographs and specialized knowledge. It is requested by the authority or individual authorized to appoint forensic expertise, in order to establish facts that need to be proven in a specific case.

The basis for conducting forensic expertise is a ruling or decision of the authority or individual authorized to appoint forensic expertise.

The use of satellite imagery and aerial images, which provide information about the present and the past, georeferenced in space and time, is a relatively new and indispensable method of evidence presentation in judicial practice. These images are valuable for proper verification, investigation of crimes, and presentation of cases in court. Traditional forensic examinations involve the detection, identification, collection, and cataloging of physical evidence for presentation in court, and Earth remote sensing data serves as evidential elements in a wide range of legal proceedings.

The purpose of satellite imagery evidence in legal proceedings is to resolve issues that require evidence in a specific case, using satellite or aerial photographs.

• Describing the dynamics of changes (or lack thereof) in the condition of objects (crops, forests, quarries, buildings, etc.) on the ground;
• Establishing the presence and dates of construction of residential, industrial, and other structures;
• Identifying violations of land use conditions on specific dates;
• Detecting violations of land boundaries and restricted areas on selected dates.

By using remotely collected imagery from sensors on board aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles, satellites (traditional video and new digital monitoring images), and mobile-stationary platforms, law enforcement officials have the ability to assess where and when certain types of crimes occurred.

Insurance companies, when an event occurs, need to know the situation before, during, and after the event. The situation before the event can be analyzed using historical imagery, while the development of the situation during and afterwards can be captured through new customized satellite or aerial imagery.

For lawyers and attorneys, satellite imagery allows for the guaranteed presentation of the real situation on the ground on specific dates. For prosecutors and investigators, the use of satellite imagery helps prove the existence of damage and assess its extent during criminal investigations. The use of satellite imagery evidence in legal and commercial disputes has been developed for over 20 years and is widely practiced worldwide.

The purpose of geospatial expertise is to establish the truth, specifically the reliability, completeness, and accuracy. Forensic expertise using satellite imagery is required to objectively confirm facts in cases such as:

• Illegal (or unauthorized) use of land;
• Unauthorized occupation of land designated for agricultural purposes;
• Illegal extraction of minerals, quarrying, deforestation, etc.;
• Illegal construction in protected areas;
• Evaluation of the accuracy of insurance claims and premiums;
• Discharge of wastewater into water bodies, soil pollution;
• Improper waste disposal;
• And more.

Specific tasks of geospatial expertise include:

• Locating boundaries and relative localization of objects;
• Determining the presence, absence, or condition of an object using archival satellite imagery (e.g., determining the date of construction of buildings and structures);
• Describing the dynamics of changes (or lack thereof) in the condition of an object;
• Determining object parameters;
• Identifying violations of land boundaries and land use conditions;
• Determining the type of object (e.g., natural or man-made) and making assumptions about specific types/species of objects with varying degrees of probability;
• Documenting the presence and extent of damage (damage assessment);
• Environmental analysis and detection of illegal dumps;
• Establishing the fact of crop failure;
• Evaluating compliance with construction and land work deadlines;
• Establishing the start date of specific construction work;
• Establishing the date of building construction;
• Establishing the date of residential building construction;
• Establishing the date of waste dumping in a specific area;
• Establishing the date of mineral extraction;
• And other tasks.

The presentation of aerospace imagery (with confirmation of its authenticity) + georeferencing of imagery on the ground + interpretation results related to the subject matter of the investigation, serving as factual evidence during the investigation or in court based on the request for expertise by the parties involved in arbitration, civil, or criminal proceedings, including the detection, identification, collection, and cataloging of physical evidence using remote sensing methods.

• Availability of detailed and informative satellite imagery in archives dating back to 1999;
• Source of objective information about the terrain and its changes;
• Possibility of studying remote and inaccessible areas;
• According to Article 64 and 89 of the Civil Procedure Code of the Russian Federation and Article 55 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation, expertise using satellite imagery is admissible as evidence in court;
• Satellite imagery serves as irrefutable objective evidence of the state of an object on the ground on a specific date;

Professionals, through their experience and technical equipment, employ a comprehensive approach to image interpretation using remote sensing in the area of expertise. By creating the values of panchromatic and multispectral interpretation—a multi-purpose index used to measure the spectral quality and spatial detail of generated images—they can significantly improve the quality (realism of objects and territories) compared to the results of classical approaches to interpreting details of generated images.

Systematic monitoring of the Earth's surface using remote sensing methods constitutes the most important archive available in the world for any investigations. These images are stored in archives and can be retrieved at any time. The history of any territory can be reconstructed.

When properly applied, remote sensing methods save time and resources for forensic investigators in search of physical evidence.

Independence from the time of day (illumination conditions). Radar imaging uses an autonomous source of radiation, allowing obtaining satellite images in the dark. This property, combined with all-weather capabilities, allows for a substantial increase in the amount of extractable information and ensures regular monitoring of the area of interest. Possibility of extracting additional information from satellite images. Besides information about oil contamination, radar images can provide data about the maritime situation at the time of the spill, ice conditions, as well as the extraction of surface wind speed and direction fields at the time of imaging (see figure below), which directly affects the dynamics of the spread of contamination.

Satellite radar monitoring technologies for oil pollution are widely used in many countries as part of emergency response systems. There are several approaches to monitoring water bodies using radar data, but they can be divided into 2 main groups:

APPROACH № 1: OPERATIONAL MONITORING

National operational control systems for oil pollution in coastal waters and territorial waters can serve as an example of the first group, established in Norway, the USA, Canada, and others.

In Norway, the state system for operational control of accidental pollution of territorial waters is organized based on coordinated satellite and aviation monitoring. In an automated mode, the reception, processing, and analysis of radar information are carried out, along with the comparison of detected pollutions with automated identification system (AIS) data of vessels. The identified pollutions are interpreted with a degree of detection reliability (high, medium, low), and the results are transmitted in real-time through web services to the Norwegian Pollution Control Authority (SFT), operating under the Ministry of Environment. The Norwegian Coast Guard dispatches a patrol aircraft to the accident area, and the observations from the aircraft help refine the scale of pollution and determine the responsible party.

In Canada and the USA, a similar system operates as part of the Integrated Satellite Tracking of Oil Pollution (ISTOP) governmental program.

The disadvantages of this approach include relatively high system costs, the possibility of receiving false alarms/missing real spills (due to automated processing focused on immediacy). Additionally, within the framework of operational monitoring, there is usually no provision for modeling the dynamics of pollution spread.

APPROACH № 1: CREATING COMPLEX GIS-MONITORING SYSTEMS

To address this task, as well as collecting spill statistics for forecasting purposes, the methodologies of the second group are aimed at creating comprehensive GIS-monitoring systems.

Within such systems, which are also widespread in European Union countries (CleanSeaNet, PRIMI programs, etc.) and often complement operational monitoring systems, the collection and integration of archival and new radar images with additional sources of information are part of a unified geoinformation system. The goal is to obtain the most comprehensive information about a specific pollution, analyze its source, and forecast/reconstruct the dynamics of its spread.

The presence of an oil spill monitoring (oil spill detection) system using a complex of aerospace methods with a time lag of about 4 hours (as of December 2022) allows for on-site situation control and environmental analysis for the presence of oil and oil product spills in the area of interest n years prior.