Preface

As technology plays a greater role in our lives, greater is the amount of generated data that becomes available to investigators to understand an investigation environment and people’s behaviours when investigating events, whether civil or criminal. A fully connected person can do little in their lives which is not recorded and stored by technology, meaning there is the ability to conduct an extensive examination into the profile of an individual to determine their actions as well as their personality DNA.

We interact with technology daily, whether we intend to or not. Moving through the community, we encounter technology in smart cities, buildings, homes and the numerous Internet of Things (IoT) devices within our environment. The data these devices collect are stored locally and/or remotely meaning an investigator has large volumes of data to examine and operate with.  A privacy-aware person may review the data in this book and be alerted to review their relationship with technology.

This book seeks to introduce both the investigator and privacy-conscious person to the volumes of data about us that technology accumulates on a daily basis. Of note, this data is generally collected lawfully with our knowledge, due to accepting and agreeing to End User Licensing Agreements which in most cases are never read.

To the investigator, this book introduces them to many items of digital technology in potential crime scenes and how they may be used to advance their investigation. This may be to understand activities, and the people involved, to prove or disprove a theory, or to corroborate a version of events as provided by a witness. Technology can record activities involving the most serious of crimes as the evolving case study included in this book shows, although it is not intended to be a substitute for traditional detective investigations.

The evidence referenced in this book is dynamic and volatile in nature meaning manufacturers change their device profiles regularly and the evidence that is available today from an item of technology may not be available tomorrow and vice versa. This book can be a guide only as new devices emerge daily that consumers readily integrate into their lives.