Preserve robotics incident evidence without premature conclusions

Evidence and interpretation

W3C PROV supplies background for tracking artifacts and processing activities. Maha’s proposed incident packet keeps original records separate from reconstructed timelines and hypotheses. A sanitization step should identify the derivative without overwriting the original evidence under its identifier. Access should be controlled because incident media can expose people or private surroundings. Treat a missing stream as missing; recreating a plausible sequence is not recovery of the actual observation.

Proposed evidence workflow

1. Preserve authorized evidence references, observation times and known recording gaps.
2. Separate original artifacts, sanitized derivatives and analyst interpretations.
3. Record who is responsible for further investigation and any reporting questions requiring qualified advice.

Worked illustration

A bag has motion commands but no camera stream during an interrupted transfer. The proposed incident account can describe issued commands and the observation gap. It cannot establish the physical cause from commands alone.

Limits

This is not emergency-response guidance, a forensic chain-of-custody certification or a determination of reporting obligations.

Sources and review

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