Discussion:
Forensic laboratory accreditation is a growing trend with 391 crime laboratories currently being accredited, which breaks down to 186 State labs, 130 Local labs, 32 Federal labs, 18 International labs, and 25 private labs (ASCLD/LAB, 2016). A search for “multimedia” of the accredited laboratories index page, found on the ASCLD/LAB website of accredited laboratory index resulted …show more content…
The standards for a digital forensics laboratory would be much less than the total standards that the ISO/IEC have defined for accreditation, however, all the relevant criteria for a digital forensics laboratory does need to be met in order to gain accreditation (Barbara, 2012). The proposed standards for the exchange of digital evidence was produced by the Scientific Working Group on Digital Evidence (SWGDE), which can be found on the SWGDE (2015) website and located in the references section of this …show more content…
According to Barbara (2006), examiners, accredited laboratories, the Scientific Working Group on Digital Evidence, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and ASTM Committee E30 on Forensic Sciences are a good source for guidance on how to accomplish this. Computer forensics standards include the IOCE, ASCLD/LAB, American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) (E2678 Standard; Guide for Education and Training in Computer Forensics), ISO SC 27 CS1, SWGDE & SWGIT (several guidance and best practices documents), National Institute of Standards and Technology (CFTT, NSRL, CFReDS), and the National Institute of Justice Standards Technical Working Group (Guttman, 2009). The guide, Standard Guide for Education and Training in Computer Forensics, ASTM E2678-09 (2014), produced by the ASTM is available for purchase for $50 (ANSI, 2016), and other guides produced by SWGDE are free of charge. The digital forensics laboratory can also gain some credibility by obtaining the ISO Certification through the ISO 9001 standard. In order to obtain certification, an external accredited certification body will audit the quality management system of the digital forensics laboratory, which uses the ISO 's Committee on Conformity Assessment (CASCO) standards to certify the business (ISO,