1、 Introduction

In judicial practice, due to the lengthy and trivial nature of WeChat chat records, as well as the lack of relevance between most messages and the facts or points of dispute to be proven, parties often tend to submit filtered screenshots when presenting evidence. During the screenshot process, they may intentionally or unintentionally delete or conceal messages that are unfavorable to themselves, and then submit the "edited" WeChat chat records as evidence to the court. Is this approach feasible? What are the legal consequences?

2、 Legal analysis

Our country's laws have strict requirements for the submission of evidence, with the core being authenticity. Article 66 (2) of the Civil Procedure Law of the People's Republic of China (Revised in 2023) stipulates that evidence must be verified to be true in order to serve as a basis for determining facts.

WeChat chat records belong to the type of evidence defined as electronic data in China's Civil Procedure Law. The review of the authenticity of electronic data evidence by the people's court mainly revolves around its integrity and reliability. As stipulated in Article 15, Paragraph 2 of the "Several Provisions of the Supreme People's Court on Evidence in Civil Litigation (2019 Amendment)", if the parties use electronic data as evidence, they shall provide the original documents. Article 93, Paragraph 1 stipulates that whether electronic data is fully stored, transmitted, and extracted, whether the methods of storage, transmission, and extraction are reliable, and the integrity and reliability of electronic data are all factors considered by the people's court when judging the authenticity of electronic data. According to the first paragraph of Article 11 of the Provisions of the Supreme People's Court on Several Issues Concerning the Trial of Cases by Internet Courts, if a party raises an objection to the authenticity of electronic data, the Internet court should review and judge the authenticity of the generation, collection, storage and transmission of electronic data in combination with the cross examination, and whether there are additions, deletions, modifications and incompleteness in the content of electronic data is the content that the Internet court focuses on reviewing.

3、 Inspiration

According to the above regulations, if WeChat chat records are submitted as evidence, it is best to submit complete WeChat chat records. If only partial screenshots are provided, it is not allowed to delete or conceal information that is unfavorable to oneself. If the other party raises objections, the original carrier should be provided for the court to review its authenticity and completeness. Otherwise, if the people's court considers the integrity of the deleted WeChat chat records to be questionable, it may greatly reduce the probative value of the evidence, and even lead to the denial of the authenticity of the evidence, and the evidence will not be accepted; If there is a tendency to delete or obstruct the trial of cases by the people's court, it may also be deemed as forging or destroying important evidence, and therefore may be fined or detained in accordance with Article 114 (1) of the Civil Procedure Law; Those who commit crimes will be held criminally responsible in accordance with the law. Therefore, when submitting electronic data evidence such as WeChat chat records, it is necessary to ensure their authenticity and completeness, and keep the original carrier for future reference.