The forthcoming Forensic Sciences standard ISO/IEC 21043 is a methodological and technical standard currently at the stage of Draft International Standard. When adopted, it will apply to all forensic disciplines, including forensic biometrics. This standard has been designed by forensic, legal, and standardisation professionals to ensure that forthcoming forensic services, products, and systems are safe, reliable, and consistently perform as intended. This contribution aims to present to the forensic biometric community the implications of adopting ISO/IEC 21043 for the forensic biometric discipline.
After an introduction (Part I) and a review of the existing international standards applied in forensic science (Part II), the five-part structure of ISO/IEC 21043 is described: 1. Terms and definitions, 2. Recovery, 3. Analysis, 4. Interpretation and 5. Reporting, (Part III). Then a selection of requirements and recommendations of this five-part standard are presented, and their implication for forensic biometric research, development, implementation, and practice is analysed (Part IV). The conclusion is that the adoption and use of ISO/IEC 21043 will help forensic laboratories reach accreditation and enhance their existing quality management systems. It will also make it easier for forensic biometric scientists to develop, deliver, and implement more relevant, more reliable, and safer services, products, and systems to the end users, the forensic biometric examiners performing casework (Part V).
Curriculum vitæ
Didier Meuwly shares his time between the Netherlands Forensic Institute, where he is a principal scientist and the University of Twente, where he holds the chair of Forensic Biometrics. He specialises in the probabilistic evaluation of forensic-biometric evidence. Didier has served as a criminalist in several international terrorist cases on request of the ICTY, STL, UN, UK and CH. He has authored and co-authored more than 60 scientific articles and chapters in the forensic science field. He is an associate and guest editor of Forensic Science International (FSI), a member of the R&D standing committee of the ENFSI and a member of the ISO TC 272.
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