On 1 December 2021, the FORMOBILE Checklist Working Group met in Frankfurt, Germany for an extensive and a very fruitful discussion on the next steps for the creation of a guidance document aimed at the legal practitioners involved with the criminal procedure – prosecutors, judges and defense attorneys. The Working Group agreed on the most effective methods to construct a dedicated Checklist in order to verify the reliability and validity of electronic evidence.
The Working Group consists of project members, FORMOBILE Ethics Advisory Board members, and external experts in electronic evidence. The main focus of the meeting was to discuss the created structure and proposed content of the Checklist, as well as the timeline for delivery and potential opportunities for its dissemination. The document is the joint work of the whole working group and is intended to be finalized by the end of February 2022.
The three-year-long project has the ambitious goal to establish a complete end-to-end forensic investigation chain, targeting mobile devices. In light of this, three main objectives are pursued – the development of novel tools; the creation of a single common European forensic standard; and the provision of a corresponding training for law enforcement agencies (LEAs).
The project is implemented with the support of the H2020 Research and Innovation programme of the European Commission under Grant Agreement No 832800.
