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Posted February 18, 2019


CSAFE researchers and advisory board members contributed to a new Fast Company article released on February 13, 2019. “Beyond CSI: How Big Data is Reshaping the World of Forensics,” highlights that forensic science has great potential, but not all of its disciplines are created equal. The article reviews the 2009 NAS report, which called for new foundational research in forensic science to improve analysis techniques. This call to action is now addressed by organizations like CSAFE through work that standardizes techniques and the gathering of data to evaluate how likely two pieces of evidence are a match.
From the article:

“Some techniques suffered from “a notable dearth of peer-reviewed, published studies,” the report found, many hadn’t been thoroughly tested to understand the likelihood that two samples of evidence could be falsely found to match, and the justice system relied heavily on the opinions of individual experts, not all of whom have the same level of training or accuracy. Like other fields from medicine to advertising that are increasingly incorporating statistical analysis and big digital data sets, the forensics world has increasingly begun to consider how to balance human skill with automated analysis.”

Learn more about the CSAFE research that is increasing the statistical foundations of forensic science evidence analysis. Don’t hesitate to reach out if you would like to schedule a training on these methods for your organization.

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