CLPEX Chat Board

Hello,

I am currently working to help coordinate the quality standard accreditation process for Police force provided forensics in the UK. I am just wondering what other countries are doing with regards to Quality Standards, if accreditation is required etc?
The standards we have to work to are ISO17025 and ISO17020. 17025 is for our footwear, DNA screening, fingerprint development, fingerprint comparison and digital disciplines. 17020 is for our scene activity.

I am really interested in seeing if there is any learning that can be shared if these standards are in place for forensics further afield than the UK.

I look forward to your responses,

Lucy.

Lucy -
I think you will find that accreditation - especially 17025, and to a growing extent 17020 - is widespread in forensic labs across the world.

I can speak more specifically about 2 countries:
In the US, accreditation is not mandated yet, except in a few states (Minnesota is one). Federally funded forensic labs need to be accredited by 2020 under an attorney general's office mandate. A large percentage of forensic labs are accredited anyway, and it is a hot topic - many labs that aren't yet accredited are working towards it.

In Australia, it isn't mandated to my knowledge (I haven't been working there for a few years now), but most were accredited anyway. The agency I worked at has been 17025 accredited for more than a decade.

It is interesting that you put fingerprint comparison in the 17025 basket - if you look at the ISOs, 17020 is more applicable to fingerprint comparison than 17025.

Our lab is accredited to both; 17020 for latents and crime scenes and 17025 for chemistry.

@timbo it right, I think 17020 is a better fit for latents since there's no 'real' testing going on with latent print examinations/comparisons. We are looking (inspecting) for something, and using processes to enhance what we are looking (inspecting) for, but we aren't testing them to determine what something is (maybe too simple of an analogy but that's all I could come up with).

EDIT: I also want to say that the supplementals will address nuances within the disciplines and ANAB's supplementals address latent print stuff sufficiently (I can't speak for A2LA).

Thanks for the responses,

When the standards were first being introduced for forensics there was much debate regarding which standard better suited fingerprint comparison. The Forensic Science Regulator and our accrediting body (UKAS) were the ones that ultimately made the call as to which forensic disciplines fell under which standards.
It's interesting to hear that the UK appear to be doing something different.