- Email: [email protected]
Will it stand up in court?
Ashley Cooper/Visuals Unlimited/getty
LEADERS
LOCATIONS UK 110 High Holborn, London, WC1V 6EU Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1200 Fax +44 (0) 20 7611 1250 Australia Tower 2, 475 Victoria Avenue, Chatswood, NSW 2067 Tel +61 2 9422 8559 Fax +61 2 9422 8552 USA 50 Hampshire St, Floor 5, Cambridge, MA 02139 Tel +1 781 734 8770 Fax +1 720 356 9217
Subscription Service For our latest subscription offers, visit newscientist.com/subscribe Customer and subscription services are also available by: Telephone +44 (0) 330 333 9470 Email [email protected] Web newscientist.com/subscribe Post New Scientist, Rockwood House, Perrymount Road, Haywards Heath, West Sussex RH16 3DH One year subscription (51 issues) UK £150 cONTACTS Contact us newscientist.com/contact Who’s who newscientist.com/people General & media enquiries Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1202 [email protected] Editorial Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1202 [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Picture desk Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1268 Display Advertising Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1291 [email protected] Recruitment Advertising UK Tel +44 (0) 20 8652 4444 [email protected] UK Newsstand Tel +44 (0) 20 3787 9001 Newstrade distributed by Marketforce UK Ltd, 2nd Floor, 5 Churchill Place, Canary Wharf, London E14 5HU Syndication Tribune Content Agency Tel +44 (0) 20 7588 7588 [email protected]
© 2016 Reed Business Information Ltd, England New Scientist is published weekly by Reed Business Information Ltd. ISSN 0262 4079. New Scientist (Online) ISSN 2059 5387 Registered at the Post Office as a newspaper and printed in England by Williams Gibbons (Wolverhampton)
Will it stand up in court? New forensic techniques raise fears of misuse of evidence IT BECAME known as “the CSI effect”. TV shows such as NCIS, Law and Order, Silent Witness and of course CSI itself sparked a surge of popular interest in forensic science, swelling the applications for university courses. But with this popularity came concern that idealised TV depictions of crime labs would cause the public to invest too much faith in forensics. On TV, tests are definitive, databases always find a match and scientists rarely make mistakes. The public, however, turns out to be capable of telling fact from fiction. Studies of potential jurors carried out around the world have shown that they maintain realistic expectations of forensics.
Sadly, we can’t always say the same for practitioners. In the US, the Department of Justice has commissioned a major review of the FBI’s application of forensic science in the courtroom. This was prompted by a number of high-profile abuses such as the discovery that FBI agents routinely misrepresented the results of hair analysis. The UK also has problems. In 2012, the government disbanded its Forensic Science Service and split the work among private firms, prompting fears that quality would suffer. Those fears have not been entirely dispelled. Next month, the government’s Forensic Science Regulator will publish an extensive review of the
Those prying eyes THE encryption wars continue. Apple is still refusing the FBI’s request to help unlock an iPhone owned by San Bernardino bomber Syed Rizwan Farook, which the agency believes holds valuable evidence. Apple argues that doing so would weaken security for all iPhone users. The power struggle looks set to go all the way to the Supreme Court, and – surreally – may depend on a contemporary
interpretation of a 1789 law called the All Writs Act. You might think that new laws are the answer, but be careful what you wish for. Apple probably wouldn’t even get a hearing if the case were taking place in the UK. The revised Investigatory Powers Bill, released this week (see page 6), suggests that companies would be compelled to remove “electronic protections” they have applied to
procedures it expects scientists to follow when investigating sexual assault cases, after allegations that using a contractor’s procedures would compromise the evidence. Now we have a new tool to worry about. Inferring that someone was at a crime scene by assessing the presence of microbes may soon have its day in court (see page 38). This technique has been hailed by one lawyer as potentially the biggest advance since DNA forensics. But it raises fresh concerns about overzealous law enforcement and naive jurors. Those may turn out to be unfounded, but that’s no reason to be complacent. A lot still hangs on our ability to tell forensic fact from fiction. n
their users’ messages and devices. Should the bill pass into law, it is difficult to see how Apple could refuse to cooperate. And under gagging clauses in the bill, the company would also not be able to engage in the very public debate it has started in the US. Encryption is hard to get worked up about. But the outcome of these fights will go a long way to decide the balance of power between governments’ desire to pry and citizens’ right to secrecy. That means you. n 5 March 2016 | NewScientist | 5
LEADERS
LOCATIONS UK 110 High Holborn, London, WC1V 6EU Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1200 Fax +44 (0) 20 7611 1250 Australia Tower 2, 475 Victoria Avenue, Chatswood, NSW 2067 Tel +61 2 9422 8559 Fax +61 2 9422 8552 USA 50 Hampshire St, Floor 5, Cambridge, MA 02139 Tel +1 781 734 8770 Fax +1 720 356 9217
Subscription Service For our latest subscription offers, visit newscientist.com/subscribe Customer and subscription services are also available by: Telephone +44 (0) 330 333 9470 Email [email protected] Web newscientist.com/subscribe Post New Scientist, Rockwood House, Perrymount Road, Haywards Heath, West Sussex RH16 3DH One year subscription (51 issues) UK £150 cONTACTS Contact us newscientist.com/contact Who’s who newscientist.com/people General & media enquiries Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1202 [email protected] Editorial Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1202 [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Picture desk Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1268 Display Advertising Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1291 [email protected] Recruitment Advertising UK Tel +44 (0) 20 8652 4444 [email protected] UK Newsstand Tel +44 (0) 20 3787 9001 Newstrade distributed by Marketforce UK Ltd, 2nd Floor, 5 Churchill Place, Canary Wharf, London E14 5HU Syndication Tribune Content Agency Tel +44 (0) 20 7588 7588 [email protected]
© 2016 Reed Business Information Ltd, England New Scientist is published weekly by Reed Business Information Ltd. ISSN 0262 4079. New Scientist (Online) ISSN 2059 5387 Registered at the Post Office as a newspaper and printed in England by Williams Gibbons (Wolverhampton)
Will it stand up in court? New forensic techniques raise fears of misuse of evidence IT BECAME known as “the CSI effect”. TV shows such as NCIS, Law and Order, Silent Witness and of course CSI itself sparked a surge of popular interest in forensic science, swelling the applications for university courses. But with this popularity came concern that idealised TV depictions of crime labs would cause the public to invest too much faith in forensics. On TV, tests are definitive, databases always find a match and scientists rarely make mistakes. The public, however, turns out to be capable of telling fact from fiction. Studies of potential jurors carried out around the world have shown that they maintain realistic expectations of forensics.
Sadly, we can’t always say the same for practitioners. In the US, the Department of Justice has commissioned a major review of the FBI’s application of forensic science in the courtroom. This was prompted by a number of high-profile abuses such as the discovery that FBI agents routinely misrepresented the results of hair analysis. The UK also has problems. In 2012, the government disbanded its Forensic Science Service and split the work among private firms, prompting fears that quality would suffer. Those fears have not been entirely dispelled. Next month, the government’s Forensic Science Regulator will publish an extensive review of the
Those prying eyes THE encryption wars continue. Apple is still refusing the FBI’s request to help unlock an iPhone owned by San Bernardino bomber Syed Rizwan Farook, which the agency believes holds valuable evidence. Apple argues that doing so would weaken security for all iPhone users. The power struggle looks set to go all the way to the Supreme Court, and – surreally – may depend on a contemporary
interpretation of a 1789 law called the All Writs Act. You might think that new laws are the answer, but be careful what you wish for. Apple probably wouldn’t even get a hearing if the case were taking place in the UK. The revised Investigatory Powers Bill, released this week (see page 6), suggests that companies would be compelled to remove “electronic protections” they have applied to
procedures it expects scientists to follow when investigating sexual assault cases, after allegations that using a contractor’s procedures would compromise the evidence. Now we have a new tool to worry about. Inferring that someone was at a crime scene by assessing the presence of microbes may soon have its day in court (see page 38). This technique has been hailed by one lawyer as potentially the biggest advance since DNA forensics. But it raises fresh concerns about overzealous law enforcement and naive jurors. Those may turn out to be unfounded, but that’s no reason to be complacent. A lot still hangs on our ability to tell forensic fact from fiction. n
their users’ messages and devices. Should the bill pass into law, it is difficult to see how Apple could refuse to cooperate. And under gagging clauses in the bill, the company would also not be able to engage in the very public debate it has started in the US. Encryption is hard to get worked up about. But the outcome of these fights will go a long way to decide the balance of power between governments’ desire to pry and citizens’ right to secrecy. That means you. n 5 March 2016 | NewScientist | 5