Imagine the following scenario:
You're the first responding officer to a crime scene and have just completed taking the victim's statement. You then tell the victim you have to leave for another call. Before you go you politely ask the victim to take photos of the scene and their injuries, collect all of the DNA and fingerprint evidence, and note that you'll either be back later in the day or maybe tomorrow or the next day to pick it all up. You note that they can just leave the evidence at the front desk for you.

This is exactly how many agencies have chosen to deal with the overwhelming amount of DCCTV evidence available to them today. "Oh, there's video? Okay, have someone export it and we'll come back to pick it up."

Sounds like an oxymoron, doesn't it? Is it a standard or is it a guideline? It's both, and it's courtesy of the ISO/IEC JTC (joint technical committee). I've been told the new document was created from a SWGDE guideline, but since you have to purchase the "standard" I couldn't really even tell you what language it is in, because I'm not paying for any document created in a vacuum.

ISO/IEC 27037 News Release

The Scientific Working Group on Digital Evidence (SWGDE)has released a DRAFT of version 3.0 of their "Best Practices for Computer Forensics" for public comment. As stated on their Web site, "The purpose of this document is to describe the best practices for collecting, acquiring, analyzing and documenting the data found in computer forensic examinations."

Visit SWGDE

The Scientific Working Group on Digital Evidence (SWGDE) recently published two new documents for public comment; Comments on Forced Minimization Requirements for the Seizure of Digital Evidence and Crime Scene Critical Incident Videography Recommendations and Guidelines. As noted on their site, draft documents will be posted for a minimum of 60 days for public comment.

Additionally, several other documents were recently approved for release by SWGDE, including Best Practices for Photographic Comparision for All Disciplines (v1.0), Digital Image Compression and FIle Formats Guidelines (v1.0), and version 3 of Digital & Multimedia Evidence Glossary, among others. Visit https://www.swgde.org for more information.

On 2/5/2015 SWGDE released a new draft document for public comment; "Best Practices for the Recovery of Data from CCTV Digital Video Recorders".

"The purpose of this document is to provide advanced practices for data recovery from CCTV DVRs when the data cannot be recovered via the guidelines provided in the SWGIT Best Practices for the Analysis of Digital Video Recorders."

Visit www.swgde.org for further details.

The Scientific Working Group on Digital Evidence (SWGDE) is pleased to announce posting of the following fourteen new draft documents for public review and comment at https://www.swgde.org/documents/draft-released-for-comment

• SWGDE Best Practices for Acquiring Online Content (21-F-001-1.1)
• SWGDE Best Practices for Apple MacOS Forensic Acquisition (23-F-005-1.0)
• SWGDE Best Practices for Digital Forensic Video Analysis (18-V-001-1.1)
• SWGDE Best Practices for Drone Forensics (21-F-002-1.1)

Following their January, 2017 meeting the Scientific Working Group on Digital Evidence (SWGDE) recently released 9 new documents for public review, including a new document called "SWGDE Framework of a Quality Management System for Digital and Multimedia Evidence Forensic Science Service Providers (DME-FSSPs)". Additionally, SWGDE published 11 Approved documents following their January meeting.

If you're involved in Forensic Multimedia Analysis, I would encourage you to visit the SWGDE website and review these documents as time permits. I'd like to thank all of those involved in SWGDE for their valuable time and contributions to our disciplines/communities.

Have a great weekend everyone. Be safe out there! - LC

This week the SWGDE released a couple of new DRAFT documents for public comment relating to DME acquisition. The links below are directly to the related PDF documents. For more information please visit www.swgde.org:

• SWGDE Best Practices for Data Acquisition from Digital Video Recorders
• SWGDE Best Practices for Digital and Multimedia Evidence Video Acquisition from Cloud Storage