When police raid a suspect’s home or business premises they seize all the memory devices (computers, telephones, cameras and USB sticks, etc.) and search them for incriminating information. Analysing all the data – which can run into hundreds of terabytes – can take weeks or months, and even then detectives can miss important clues and evidence.
At the company FOX-IT, MSc candidate Jop Hofsté developed together with Dr Maurice van Keulen of the University of Twente a part of the software package Tracks Inspector. Following a one-off analysis taking a few hours this software maps a suspect’s network without missing a single clue.
Tracks Inspector not only identifies all of a suspect’s contacts, it also shows which persons the suspect had most contact with. Even if someone uses various aliases the software will indicate that they relate to one and the same person. It has been tested on closed police cases. Dr Maurice van Keulen explains: “We let detectives who had been involved in closed cases use our software. They were enthusiastic about the speed and completeness with which a suspect’s network was traced. Also, the software is so user-friendly that they were able to do the work themselves without needing to bring in experts. It can therefore be used easily in a host of cases, as well as saving detectives a lot of time, enabling them to work on more cases.”
The results produced by Tracks Inspector will be discussed at the International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Law, which is to take place in Rome from 10-14 June.
More information
Dr Van Keulen works at the University of Twente’s Centre for Telematics and Information Technology (CTIT) research institute. He is a member of a group of professors from various faculties who are jointly using their expertise and technology to develop the area of Crime Science.
Fox-IT is a Dutch company with expertise in the field of data security and digital detection. For more information see the Fox-IT website.
