Jonathan, I can see where you are coming from. It seems to me though that maximising revenue could equally be achieved by encouraging single person and small business to gain accreditation by offering a price they can afford. The use of £1500.00 has been discussed, but it could be another figure.
Where I see the system being used against single person and small business is by keeping prices high, because those that provide the service benefit (which is not suggested as a bad thing because they earn money) BUT the system will become a self-fulfilling prophecy in that it always intended to keep single person and small business out due to pricing, which I suspect may be seen to breach quite a wide-range of EU fundamental principles on 'human rights', 'common approach', 'restaint of trade' etc etc etc.
Where another level playing may not exist is on tools used by departments who are not Labs and therefore are not required to follow ISO-17020 and ISO-17025 or be audited for that purpose. I came across this website that offered a tool to extrapolate stored data.
UK Law enforcement agency
The organization is supplying Intella to CID detectives to enable them to review case emails and files under investigation themselves. This has greatly improved the ability of the CID detectives to search and understand computer based evidence without the long waits and back logs of the forensic departments.
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I am just using this tool/website as an example for this discussion.
So if these detectives in their offices can do the work and replace computer forensic Labs and back-office staff will these non-Labs be subject to the same fait accompli ISO-17020 and ISO-17025 requirements as Labs? The reason I mention this is that CID at least on one level wouldn't be permitted by law to pass case files to ISO auditors for their assessment. The work they do is far too important. The assessor, if working cleanly to the ISO requirements, is required to look at those case files. So would this just generate the auditor compromising and saying well you're a good guy so we can let you off? Does that mean everyone else is not a good guy? How many compromises before the system becomes as untenable for forensics as other documentary based QA systems. By untenable, I do not mean these are bad Standards because they are useful for many other areas in business, they are just not so good for forensics as they really cannot corroborate the pillars of work that form the base upon which the operational platform rests and which is to be assessed, the platform that is, not the pillars.