Reviewing a police digital-forensic report
A practical starting point for solicitors assessing the link between a technical finding and the inference advanced in a matter.
Category
12 items from the laboratory.
A practical starting point for solicitors assessing the link between a technical finding and the inference advanced in a matter.
Indicators that a focused forensic review may resolve a material uncertainty before a larger examination is commissioned.
Define the disputed inference, required opinion, available material and deadline before the examination begins.
Why recording an event, identifying its cause and attributing it to a person are separate forensic questions.
Ordering records by time is a presentation step; reconstructing events requires attention to meaning, clocks, coverage and uncertainty.
The source record, operating-system behaviour and decoding assumptions matter as much as a report’s label.
Metadata can inform origin, timing and file history, but its source and processing history must be understood.
Choose expertise by the evidentiary question, the underlying systems and the reasoning required, rather than the job title.
A software report can organise records; an expert must explain the reasoning that connects those records to the question.
Acquisition labels describe methods, not a guarantee that every relevant record has been preserved or decoded.
Go beneath a derivative report when the source, processing or interpretation could materially change the answer.
From a defined technical question to a reasoned opinion, with clear limits and an independent role in the proceeding.