Mobile Phone Forensic technology helps police link terror suspects and organised gangs

April 23, 2012 - PRLog -- LONDON April 2012: Unique digital forensic technology has been developed to help police analyse a wealth of data extracted from mobile phones.

Due to its ability to identify social and criminal networks Forensic Phone Analyser (FPA) is helping Police and security agencies trace and link the terrorist activities of criminal gangs.

A key principle to the software is data aggregation, bringing all the data together in one place. The Forensic Phone Analyser (FPA) system does this by using a single database to store all the data extracted from mobile phones.  

Developed by UK company Forensic Pathways, Forensic Phone Analyser (FPA) can trace and link people, identify social and criminal networks, pinpoint fraudulent identities and attribute phone numbers and text messages to people.  

Criminals now rely on mobile phones as much as law abiding citizens to carry out their illegal activity.  There were 98 million mobiles in use in the UK last year according to the International Telecommunications Union.

An experiment carried out by Forensic Pathways on 1,000 mobile phones discovered 87,637 phone numbers; 87,059 digit entries and 1,726 case relationships (new links between crime cases).

This means police are now bombarded with data from mobile phones and networks that could provide valuable intelligence in an investigation. However, the sheer volume of data and the fact that current analysis methods are limited and time consuming (many hours are spent manually data cleansing), means they are not making the best use out of the available evidence.

As we know extracting data from mobile phones is now common place.  FPA is used as the next stage following extraction and is not used as part of the extraction process.  Forensic Phone Analyser allows police to cleanse all extracted data quickly, search and analyse accurately and then compile the information in a report. The system can handle data extracted from one mobile phone or thousands of phones.

“Crimes such as terrorism are becoming increasingly complex and often have an international element to them,” explains Richard Leary from Forensic Pathways.

“By using Forensic Phone Analyser, police can help build up an accurate picture of an individual’s involvement in a gang or particular crime and use it as valuable evidence to secure a conviction. It can also help establish whether individual crimes are linked and are part of wider organised activity.”

The technology can also protect undercover officers by revealing whether informants and their associates have discovered the identity of the officer.

Forensic Pathways - known globally for its innovative digital forensics technology – is demonstrating the tool at this year’s Counter Terror Expo on Stand G45

For more information contact sales@forensic-pathways.com / +44 (0)1827 255170 / www.forensic-pathways.com

About Forensic Pathways
Forensic Pathways is an international award winning company with offices in the UK and Australia, along with an international distribution network.  The company develops and supplies cutting edge technologies and products in the area of advanced data analytics including telecoms and cell phone data analytics, forensic image and video analytics.  In addition Forensic Pathways provides due diligence and fraud investigation services, covert surveillance, legal interception of telecoms and internet communications and internet monitoring.