Digitization of Forensic Engineering: Overview, Perspectives and New Challenges

In the last years, digitization of data and processes in the forensic field has started to flourish as a core aspect of computer science, due to the need of extracting, representing and storing the underlying information. The scope of application is wide and multidisciplinary, as the digitization process now fully involves all phases of the forensic process. Due to the recent innovations in the field of knowledge representation and data analytics, this paper provides a thorough methodological overview of the main digitizing approaches and algorithms within the so-called “Forensic Engineering”. Firstly, the two terms “Digitization” and “Forensic” will be introduced and defined. Then, the meaning and value of these two concepts combined together will be explored. Accordingly, an overview of the forensic digitization procedure will be provided and the importance that this digital transformation entails, in both scientific and innovation terms. Secondly, different examples of data-driven approaches and intelligent systems for knowledge extraction, representation and classification will be presented in multiple contexts of forensic engineering. Following a methodologic analysis of the main limitations of the existing methods, we will propose innovative and promising research directions in the field. Finally, many difficulties, due to Code requirements and Code of Practice approaches, will be pointed out in order to define a more practical approach for a common Legal Engineer.