Something to think about

Earlier this week, I was the keynote speaker at the annual conference of the Nebraska chapter of the International Association for Identification.  The IAI is a professional association of people involved in forensic science and criminal identification.  Think of them as the CSI association.

The conference was at the beautiful Peter Kiewit lodge at Mahoney State Park, midway between Lincoln and Omaha.  About 100 people were in attendance, including many investigators from Nebraska law enforcement agencies.  There were several vendors displaying their wares.  I'm always pretty interested in any kind of gizmo that comes packed in a Pelican case, so I enjoyed my coffee while perusing crime scene gear before the conference kick-off.

The participants are all involved in forensic investigations: fingerprints, DNA, trace evidence, and so forth. But I talked about another aspect of criminal identification: the collection and analysis of data, specifically, the trail of electrons people leave behind as they go about their lives.  Once again, I used myself as an example, walking the audience through the places I had been and things that I had done already that morning, where I had left my own electronic breadcrumps.

I hope I gave the conference participants something to think about.  It's a topic I have blogged about on prior occasions.  I think we are still just scratching the surface, however, and that the collision between the technology of mining electronic evidence and concerns about personal privacy looms as an issue that will create some significant public discussion in coming years.