Forensic Significance of Cardiac Implantable Device (Pacemaker)

Pacemakers are automated electric medical devices that are imbibed in the pleural cavity near to heart so as to stimulate the heart with electrical inducement to maintain or restore a normal heartbeat. Pacemakers can be implanted temporarily to treat bradycardia after a heart attack, surgery or overdose of medication. They can also be implanted permanently to correct a slow heartbeat or, in some cases, to help treat heart failure. With increase in pacemaker indications and especially implantable cardioverter-defibrillators, the number of patients with implantable devices has been growing steadily. With the enhancement in the technology the design of pacemakers are being modified till date. Pacemakers being an electronic device also stores data of patient's heartrate, pulse rate and number of time it has paced in a day. Since, technology is killing our opportunity to falsify the information; the data stored in the pacemaker can either support or reject the alibi stated by the victim or assailant. The aim of this research paper is to study the concept and type of digital data stored in implantable cardiac device i.e. pacemaker. This study focuses on awareness about the application of pacemaker in solving forensic cases. Digital data provided by the pacemaker in any ongoing investigation will have a huge evidentiary potential, as it can be made admissible in the court of law under Section 65-B of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872. In this paper, we are recommending that pacemakers can be used as digital evidences since, they track the audit trails of the patient.