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17025 and Indecent Pictures of Children

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(@dficsi)
Posts: 283
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Dear all,

We currently have someone in our office who is helping us with our 17025 accreditation and he has raised something interesting.

When we conduct work relating to indecent images of children we will, as most of you working on this type of case in the UK, find such images and categorise them according to the Sentencing Guidelines Council's… well… guidelines, I suppose.

Our friend is telling me that I have to form an SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) to identify indecent pictures of children. This SOP, correctly followed, should allow anyone to follow the instructions and come to the same conclusion. This, apparently, is all part of the opinions and interpretations part of 17025.

My questions are

1) Is this even possible? It seems to me that an opinion is an opinion and they change from person to person.

2) Who's going to write it for me? (This question may be a joke, it depends on the answers to the first question)

Thanks

 
Posted : 22/10/2010 5:02 pm
 samr
(@samr)
Posts: 119
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DFICSI

It is a subjective area. I know when I have reviewed cases performed by others that I have come to different levelings as well as cases where one person believes an image is indecent and another states it's not. Even when it comes to the meaning of the guidelines it is open to the opinion of an individual, for example, how do you define "erotic posing"?

In my experience the levels of charging policy assigned by different police forces can alter too where for example, some will charge as level 4 and others will go for level 3 etc. for the same images.

The only way I can think you could do it is to look at consistent categorisation throughout your organisation. This would likely involve you make your own database of image hashes which are categorised and agreed within your organisation. How you come to the agreement and deal with categorising of 'new' images (considering MoU agreements etc. too) is a different matter. Good luck with that one 😉

Kind regards

Sam Raincock

 
Posted : 22/10/2010 5:21 pm
azrael
(@azrael)
Posts: 656
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Can't offer a guarantee that this is the right answer, but

1) Yes, it is possible, because what you write is

"Step 3 Examine images and categorise against SGC guidelines".

If that is what it is based on, then that is what you reference in the document. Assuming the guidelines are reasonable, then the categorisation is likely to be repeatable - however, the truth of the matter is that they are after the proceedure documentation, not the _actual_ repeatability - how often is the proceedure going to be repeated ? I suppose the only real mitigation that you could offer is something along the lines of running a training day for all staff whereby the classification scheme is covered so that you could hope for a level of consistency.

2) Heh, I find that the answer to this question is invariably "you are" 😉

 
Posted : 22/10/2010 5:27 pm
(@dficsi)
Posts: 283
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Figured as much. This is bizarre. Has anyone done 17025 and is willing to share their own experiences with this? Did you put it in your application or did you find a way to exclude it?

Essentially I've been told that we need a calibration or test that we use to determine if a child is under age.

 
Posted : 22/10/2010 5:31 pm
benfindlay
(@benfindlay)
Posts: 142
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Lee,

It's definitely possible, but not straight forward. We have one in place in our office, as case officers are often required to do their own categorisation within my organisation. Often these officers have never used a forensic program before, so sections of it deal with specific software applications, whilst other sections deal with more general concepts.

Whilst my organisation is not (currently) pursuing the 17025 accreditation, we have various SOPs in place based on accepted good practice, with long term intentions being to conform to the regulation changes we all know are coming.

As for who is going to write it, my view is that it needs to be someone that is familiar with every step undertaken by whatever is standard procedure within your organisation. I wrote the current working copy within my office. It will change and develop as it gets reviewed by others,

Achieving ISO accreditation seems to be somewhat feared by many, but in reality it is nothing more that would be required of any fully documented and explained procedure, all that should be required is the formalisation and thorough explanation of what you already do, or should already be doing!

Assuming that what goes on in already 'good practice', the majority of time will be spent making that document explain everything to the Nth degree. Someone more cynical than me might replace the word 'spent' in the previous sentence with 'wasted', but as you said, the point is to make sure anyone (including trained monkeys) can repeat what you did and achieve the same results.

When it comes to the issue of opinion we have an in-house rule to account for differing opinions that basically states 'if in doubt, leave it out'. Whilst I'm not prepared to discuss specific details on a public forum due to the psychological nature of IPOC cases, put simply; if there is any hint that a specific image might not be an IPOC, it does not get categorised according to the accepted typology. In other words, if at all possible, give the accused the benefit of the doubt. More often than not, defence will come back with higher categorisation counts than my unit did initially.

Also, perhaps consider a 'critical findings check' or making it SOP to have another analyst check the initial levelling, something which is commonly done for other types of forensic work, especially the more traditional trace evidence type cases (e.g. footwear, glass, fibres etc).

Kind regards

Ben

 
Posted : 22/10/2010 5:33 pm
 samr
(@samr)
Posts: 119
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Azrael

However, if you were to audit the categorisation opinions I would guess you would always have inconsistencies between examiners and even with the examiners themselves. For example, if you were to examine and categorise and then recategorised say 1,000 images would you get the same results?

My understanding of ISO 17025 is that things are required to be reproducible and consistent throughout.

Kind regards

Sam Raincock

 
Posted : 22/10/2010 5:36 pm
azrael
(@azrael)
Posts: 656
Honorable Member
 

Very true, especially when it comes to age identification. I'd agree that the standard does say that things are to be reproduceable and consistent, however I think there is a degree of leeway that an auditor can apply within reason, and this, surely has to be within reason ?

I'm trying to recall some research that I read with regard to limb length to head size ratios that can be used to approximate age, I heard about it being used to judge if a child were old enough for a vaccination where if they could reach over their head and touch the ear on the opposite side they were. ( I didn't believe it until I tried it with my own kids - it does work ). But I can't find any references to it, or indeed remember what the age was ( it wasn't going to be legal age whatever it was ), but I wonder if the ratio change would be enough to give a reproduceable guestimate up to a certain age ? ( Providing your images contained the required measurements ).

 
Posted : 22/10/2010 5:44 pm
azrael
(@azrael)
Posts: 656
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There seems to be more research on the ratio of leg length to torso length as an age estimator, sample size in the article below is 14500 children ( Dutch, so not a million miles from here ) between the ages of 0 and 21.

http//www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1720514/pdf/v090p00807.pdf

 
Posted : 22/10/2010 5:57 pm
Jamie
(@jamie)
Posts: 1288
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sample size in the article below is 14500 children ( Dutch, so not a million miles from here )

The Dutch are extremely tall (tallest in the world I believe) but presumably as this is a ratio, rather than measure of absolute length, this shouldn't matter. Correct me if I'm wrong, anyone!

 
Posted : 22/10/2010 6:58 pm
azrael
(@azrael)
Posts: 656
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Really, the Dutch are tall ? I'd never noticed !

Well here is one for the next person who asks about a MSc thesis 😉

http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_height

The Swedes and the German's nearly top the bill at 5'11.5" with the Dutch at 5'10" and the English down at 5'9" ish on average ( with Scots fractionally taller 😉 ) - the Indonesians tower under us at 5'2" - but the record goes to the dwellers of the Dinaric Alps at 6'1" !

God I love what I learn on this forum 😉

 
Posted : 22/10/2010 7:00 pm
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