FORMOBILE · From mobile phones to court – A complete FORensic investigation chain targeting MOBILE devices

Mobile devices, especially smartphones represent a unique challenge for law enforcement. Criminal offenders use phones to communicate, coordinate, organise and execute criminal actions. This is especially true for organised crime and terrorist organisations. This development provides new challenges for criminal prosecution and it is vital to empower law enforcement to access the data stored on mobile devices to use it as court evidence in a trustworthy and reliable manner. The overarching objective of FORMOBILE is to establish a complete end to end forensic investigation chain, targeting for mobile devices. To achieve this goal three objectives will be pursued. Novel tools shall be developed that include the acquisition of previously unavailable mobile data, unlocking mobile devices, as well as the decoding and analysis of mobile data. Based on the definition of requirements of law enforcement and legal and ethical issues a new mobile forensics standard shall be developed. With the developments of the new standard and the new tools, training for police and criminal prosecution will be established, providing the end users with the latest knowledge in a novel and an innovative curriculum to ensure a quality standard of investigations. The European Union has developed as a Security Union, building on the European Agenda on Security. This aims to ensure that people live in an area of freedom, security and justice, without internal frontiers. To strengthen digital forensics in the context of criminal investigations is crucial to achieve this vision. FORMOBILE contributes to the fight against virtually all forms of crime. This is because mobile devices are widely used in crimes, especially in the arrangement of conspiracies. Yet, there are crimes more closely related to mobile devices; this includes child abuse and emerging forms of cybercrime in particular. To fight crime effectively, law enforcement has to be empowered to access all evidence stored on mobile devices.