I am curious to know what, if any, legal decisions in the UK have led to the required presentation of CSA as evidence in criminal matters involving a phone.
I have just started working in an area involving phone forensics, and some of the steps taken by investigators/examiners in the UK seem to be common sense (ex. verify with the carrier that the mast/tower was working correctly at the time of the incident), but I have never seen these steps taken for phone investigations stateside. Here, carriers often produce all of the records and certify them as true and correct for use in court. This being sufficient in every case I have seen.
Are defense counsel in the UK attacking these areas, or are these steps undertaken out of an abundance of caution?
Also, first post. Thanks for having me here.
chrub
Are you undertaking CSA from an investigators side or law enforcement?
As a law enforcement investigator, primarily assisting other agencies with these types of technical issues.
My reason for asking is to establish strong best practices and hopefully avoid legal challenges, even if they haven't been considered in my jurisdiction yet.
Excellent ! Intentions and objectives of best practice are always a good starting point. Where do you want to start?
I suppose I am most curious as to why the UK appears to require analysis on all cases involving phone location. This is not something that occurs here in the US.
Is this a holdover from an era prior to GPS location? Is there case law which challenges the accuracy of a carrier reporting phone location? Does the UK have a parallel to our E911 which requires a carrier's ability to geo-locate phones within a set number of meters? If so, why wouldn't such a technical standard remove the need for on-scene network testing?
The practice of an examiner going on scene and drive testing simply isn't done here. Why do you guys do it? And why don't we do it?
Trewmte, your blogs have been extremely helpful in laying some foundations to my new endeavor. I am slowing making my way through them all. Thanks for any input.
[Farley"chrub"]I suppose I am most curious as to why the UK appears to require analysis on all cases involving phone location. This is not something that occurs here in the US.
Is this a holdover from an era prior to GPS location? Is there case law which challenges the accuracy of a carrier reporting phone location? Does the UK have a parallel to our E911 which requires a carrier's ability to geo-locate phones within a set number of meters? If so, why wouldn't such a technical standard remove the need for on-scene network testing?
The practice of an examiner going on scene and drive testing simply isn't done here. Why do you guys do it? And why don't we do it?
Trewmte, your blogs have been extremely helpful in laying some foundations to my new endeavor. I am slowing making my way through them all. Thanks for any input.
In the UK cell site analysis is a tool in an arsenal of tools. Prosecution and defence both use CSA because of the ubiquitous nature of our highly evolved mobile telecommunications network. In saying that CSA is not used in every case. High level crime usually benefits from CSA but in petty crime cases it can be disproportionate to use it. I am aware that CSA is conducted in the US and from what I have seen and read you do a pretty good job with the minimal information afforded to you.
I first started in CSA in 1988 when the UK had adopted the analogue cellular system called TACS ( Total Access Communications System). GPS wasn't in great use back then and even when GSM started in 1992 over here it was another 10 years before GPS was used to mimic the footsteps taken by the radio test measurement examiner. I am refering to those collecting evidence and not network radio engineers running site tests or quality testing. In this regard the US are quite advanced in using GPS but sometimes fail to recognise some of their achievements. By way of illustration you use GPS for transmitter coordinates to identify cell source of coverage. In the UK we don't. That said the GPS is only exacting to the azimuth of coverage not the precise location of the (defendant's/victim's) mobile
There is UK and US case law on the accuracy of CSA. Regarding the emergency services here again requirement for a level of accuracy does exist for UK and US. It is too long to explain in this thread but I can email PDF documents to you.
Mobile location assessment for emergency services is conducted live as in call in progress (you can add lawful interception to the list as well). Standard CSA uses historical data which generally means using every skill to obtain as much info from the mobile network operator as possible. Given our mature market we possess a greater understanding of what is available. In the US your system is designed as a layer cake of entitlement to knowledge.
Drive tests are conducted in the US but don't be fooled you also have to do tests on foot as well.
"In the US your system is designed as a layer cake of entitlement to knowledge."
Greg,
Truer words have never been spoken!
Cheers!
Layer cake is a very polite way of putting it. Our federal "partners" treat this area as exclusive territory, but I digress.
Trewmte, any PDFs or other resources you would like to share will be greatly appreciated. I will pm you my email.
Email sent to you (see PM message)
With so much info available it may be your Federal support is not being difficult merely just in a restricted position of being lawfully unable to reveal due to privacy and constitutional amendments.