Colloquium Computer Science - Prof. Didier Meuwly, University Twente & Netherlands Forensic Institute and Dr. Annemieke de Vries, Netherlands Forensic Institute

Title: Forensic RD&I at the NFI - vision, strategy and application to forensic biometrics

Abstract:

The first part of the lecture presents the different steps of the forensic process (crime scene, analysis, interpretation and reporting) and explains the core activities of a forensic institute such as the NFI (forensic casework, RD&I and education/dissemination) with a special focus on education, research, development & innovation (RD&I) and on collaboration.

The NFI develops an extensive internal education, permanent education and certification program. It also aims at improving forensic examination by combining the development of innovative products and processes (push from the science) and the innovation within the criminal justice chain (pull from the practice). The NFI has currently numerous collaborations. It encourages multidisciplinary projects and collaborations within the criminal justice chain as well as the national and international academic community.

The second part of the lecture will focus on the use of forensic biometric data and databases in forensic practice. Questions about the source of biometric traces are relevant in several forensic applications: identity verification, closed and open-set identification, intelligence, investigation and evaluation of evidence in court:

Forensic biometrics is used for the verification of identity or identification of suspected persons, mainly using the fingerprint, face palm or DNA modes. It is also used for the closed or open-set identification of persons in the context of terrorism using face images or disaster victim identification (DVI) using DNA material, fingerprints or dental records.

Forensic intelligence consists in linking criminal cases together, for example using DNA traces, fingermarks or face images. Forensic investigation consists of selecting shortlists of candidates as potential sources of biometric traces, for example using fingermarks, DNA, face images or speech audio recordings. Forensic evaluation focuses on the description of the strength of the evidence that an individual is the source of a trace, for example using body height measurements (feature-based approach) or speech recordings (score-based approach)