Building a Digital Forensic Laboratory

Chapter 13. Quality Assurance

Introduction

This chapter will address the vitally important issue of Quality Assurance (QA) and will describe when it should be carried out, who should do it, and to what standards.

Quality assurance is a vital task in any modern digital forensics laboratory. QA, as it is sometimes colloquially referred to, is a planned, systematic set of actions to provide an assurance that a product or service will satisfy the requirements for quality. Forensic science is the application of scientific method to determine facts for presentation in court as evidence. Considering that some of these courts will impose long custodial sentences or the death sentence there is no greater argument for stringent quality assurance. All ...