Indelible Evidence Indelible Evidence
By Barry Fox
This article originally appeared in .
Police will soon be more confident about using digital images as evidence in criminal trials, thanks to a new watermarking system. Using digital pictures as evidence has been a problem until now, because they are so easy to alter. But the British firm Signum Technologies, based in Cheltenham, has come up with a device that makes digital images more secure. At least one British police force is keen to test it.
Police forces are already trying out digital cameras to collect evidence of driving offences on motorways in Leicester and Devon, and around London. But they are concerned that this evidence could be challenged in court. Police would also like to use digital cameras for more than just motoring offences. They want to use them to take pictures of the scene of a crime.
The advantage of a digital camera is that the photographer can preview the scene through a screen that shows the final image. However, the Crown Prosecution Service warned the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee late last year that "some form of data protection and encryption is needed to exclude external interference and rebut claims that images have been tampered with".
The VeriData software works in conjunction with standard image software on an ordinary PC. Processing is virtually instant. But Signum recognises that for the system to be tamper-proof, the image has to be coded inside the camera. The company is working with the photographic film maker Agfa on real-time coding.
Signum is also working with Hammersmith Hospital in London on a similar system to encode medical images, such as X-rays, as they are created. "The medical area is now full of litigation," explains Signum's Alan Bartlett.
© Copyright New Scientist, RBI Limited 1998