by Si Biles, co-host of the Forensic Focus podcast
Forensics Europe Expo again graced the halls of the ExCeL centre in the heart of London Docklands. Sharing exhibition space alongside the Counter Terrorism Expo on the 19th and 20th June, this was an opportunity for many familiar names – and a few new ones – to lay out their wares in front of an international audience.
Forensic Focus was there again this year, sharing the stand with Sophie Powell, one of the founders of CyberWomen Groups CIC. It was great to catch up with a number of podcast listeners and Forensic Focus users – thank you to all of you who came over to say “Hello !” – and it was nice to be able to point a few new starters to some resources on the forums to help them on their way!
It was interesting to hear about a number of people currently in “meatspace” forensic roles who are looking to transition into the digital realm, and this expo was a pretty good place to do so, with a vast majority of the forensics side of things being taken up with digital.
Talk Highlights
This year again we saw the excellent hosting skills of Professor Sarah Morris, who ran the event with her usual charm and flair – opening, closing and introducing the talks (which ran from 1000hrs to 1630hrs).


CCTV – it’s not ‘just a video’, it’s digital data
Owing to the footfall at the stand this year, I didn’t get to hear all that much of the talks – but it was great to hear David Spreadborough from Amped bringing “It’s not ‘just a video’, it’s digital data” to the audience, reiterating all the important points about the handling of CCTV evidence in his usual energetic way – which, having found out that he ascends parts of the Himalayas for fun, should come as no surprise!

Demonstration of the Met’s Focus Forensic tool
Another great talk was from Macrus Giudici from the Met on the Focus Forensic Tool. I’d been lucky enough to have a preview of this from him on the LEVA level 2 training a few weeks beforehand – and I hope that we’ll be able to bring him and an online demonstration to the podcast in the near future. Freely available to law enforcement in the UK, this video presentation tool is well conceived and well executed – making the delivery of image and video evidence in the courtroom a smooth and flexible process.

Exhibitor Highlights
Walking the floor brought the usual incremental improvements that we know and love and that are the necessary lifeblood of the forensic software industry.

MarvelScan from Leica Geosystems
Leica Geosystems always brings toys that I covet, and this year was no exception – their new “MarvelScan” (lives up to it’s rather brilliant name creating 3d point models with an industry leading 0.02mm accuracy). I was told that the guys on the stand had only had it for two weeks and were still learning the ropes of everything that it could do – as I can’t seem to find it still on the website – I suspect that “bleeding edge” is probably a pretty fair assessment (although I wouldn’t want to suggest that it’s not production ready, it very clearly was). The level of detail that it was able to resolve was astronomical, but be prepared for getting some extra RAM if you’re not already full as the models are – understandably – huge.

Oxford Wave Research
There was also another company present whom I’d not heard of before – which is ironic given that they’re not actually terribly far from me at home – Oxford Wave Research. Taking from their website (https://oxfordwaveresearch.com), they are “specialising in audio and speech processing, voice biometrics and deep learning-related product development”, and they have a range of products as you might expect – a lot with rather interesting naming conventions “MADCAT”, “WHISKERS” and “TEAPOT” definitely stood out! The one that I found most interesting was “MADCAT” – which is a “content search, deduplication and time synchronisation system for audio and video files”. It has the nice feature of being “based on the principle that if two or more different recordings contain the same acoustic events, it is possible to search for and identify the parts of the audio that are overlapping and to provide a precise time of match” – basically, lining up clips on the basis of matching audio event. It’s a neat idea and seemed to work well in the brief demonstration that I saw.
Final Thoughts
The event overall had a good “vibe” to it – people were almost universally friendly and willing to engage, with some language (or possibly cultural!) barriers for overseas visitors probably explaining the cases where it was less so. It’s definitely livelier on the first days than on the second days I’ve attended over the last couple of years – as a visitor, there’s not enough there really to fill more than a couple of hours if you aren’t going to listen into the talks. I’d probably only dedicate a half day to visiting and make sure that you take a look at the talk program in advance to time that with things that you’d like to hear.
As an exhibitor, I’d definitely be prepared for the higher footfall to be on the first day, if you’re staff limited over the two days – more on the first, lighter on the second. It does die down before closing time, but there is a reasonable queue to get in waiting for the doors to open in the morning, so make sure that you’ve had your coffee and are raring to go.
Parking is easy and easy to pre-book, and the Elizabeth Line drops you at the front door – so getting to the ExCeL is easy – although I did hear a rumour that it might be hosted elsewhere next year – I have no confirmation of this so I’d wait for the official announcement if I were you! All other onsite facilities align with what you’d expect from a leading exhibition centre in London – a choice of food, plenty of washrooms, free WiFi and so on – although the pizza wasn’t as good as I remember it!
Keep your eyes out on the events pages for details of next year’s event, and I hope that I can meet many of you there.