December 2009 (2)

As always the last days of the year are very good to finish deadlines, and finish casework and preparing courses for next year. The ideal situation to finish all work since there are no meetings and it is more quiet at the laboratory since many people have vacation.

From January 1st we have a new law on Forensic evidence active in the Netherlands, with an official register of experts at http://www.nrgd.nl . So it is interesting how this will work, since there are no experts in this register yet. However it is expected to be a good approach for the quality of forensic expertise in the Netherlands.

Currently we send out a proficiency test for camera identification and also organized the CAMCOM competition, where more people are interested to participate. It is interesting what will happen here.

Also I am working on a workshop on forensic multimedia analysis for the AAFS and looking on how to improve the training we give on digital evidence in general, with more interactive learning.

The good thing is now that I do not have any backlog in casework anymore, since we have better caseload management procedures in place, and this approach seems to work. So for the first time since 1991 I see an approach that works in practice, which also makes visible what are capacity is for casework, and also takes into account the more complicated cases.

Finally also my health improved, since I had issues with some of the medicines for asthma, that worked on coronary spasms with the betamimetics and also with ipratropiumbromide inhalers (which is a complication that is not very common). After good interaction between the cardiologist and the lung doctor, finally since this month I have a treatment that appears to work without all the complications I had before. So it appears after all a good start for 2010.

Visit Tokyo

At evening also went to Electric City Akihabara. In 1996 I have worked for 3 months in Tokyo, so I know this place well. The prices are the same as in the Netherlands, and even diner and hotel seems to be cheaper then in the Netherlands. I had a 11 hours direct flight with KLM, and after that I just did a short visit there. Public transportation in Tokyo is very clear and all signs are in English as well as there chipcard system which works very well.

December 2009

In November I had a busy month, so not much time to update the ongoing work. Busy with casework as organizing a conference for digital evidence in the Netherlands for the Dutch police. Also a presentation on for European Security Round Table Working Group ESRT on forensic science, which also was a result from a meeting of FIDIS.

Currently we are also distributing a proficiency test for camera identification, where we send out a camera and ask to compare these with ten directories of images. Of course also some work for the AAFS in reviewing membership applications and preparing the handouts for the totally revised workshop on Forensic Multimedia. Another challenge we organize is the CAMCOM-challenge for camera identification for ICPR.

Last week I also attended a meeting in Tokyo of the IOCE, where I gave two presentations : one on 17025 in digital evidence and one on the ENFSI Forensic IT Working group. We also discussed the ISO 27037 standard on Guidelines for identification, collection and/or acquisition and preservation of digital evidence where also from ENFSI Forensic IT there were 84 proposals for changes.

Next year we will have our working group meeting of ENFSI Forensic IT in Moscow in September 2010.