FAQ

What are the project deliverables?

The goals of CSI The Hague are to digitize the crime scene, to virtualize the crime scene and to aid education and training.

• To digitize the crime scene: for example, by using a hand-held scanner, spectral imaging and thermal imaging, the crime scene can be saved digitally. If we are able to preserve the crime scene digitally, we will be able to rank the most likely hypotheses and identify the suspect more quickly.

• To virtualize the crime scene: all the digital information will be available in a virtual environment, allowing us to experience an objective reconstruction. Serious gaming techniques, a head-mounted device and augmented reality applications are used. The virtualized crime scene can be used for research, but can also create situational awareness for judges or the Public Prosecution Service.

• To aid education and training: to secure as much evidence as possible in a short amount of time, the protocol and techniques of investigating the crime scene are very important. But training people in these aspects is difficult. In October 2011 the CSI Lab opens. In this lab professionals can be educated and trained in a virtual reality environment, based on realistic cases. The working methods on a crime scene and the use and application of new technologies can be studied in virtual and physical surroundings that simulate a crime scene. In this way, new methods and best practices can be developed, taught and trained with the newest insights from the field of gaming. These ‘serious gaming techniques’ will optimize and accelerate the investigation process. In a simulated crime scene we can monitor and analyze human behavior on an scientific base. With these results we can improve the methods of forensic investigation.
  

Who will use the technologies that are developed?

The digitized and virtualized crime scene can will be used for reconstruction and for testing hypotheses, but can also create situational awareness for judges or the Public Prosecution Service. The technology will also be very useful for education, for training forensic researchers or for experimenting with new methods and techniques.

Are all the technologies new?

In CSI The Hague, existing technologies from outside the forensic field are combined. The partners in the consortium will work with open standards, so that all technologies can be made suitable for use within the forensic field.

When will CSI The Hague be finished?

The project has duration of three years (2009-2012).

Who is financing CSI The Hague?

All the partners of CSI The Hague are contributing to the project.
The project is also sponsored by the City of The Hague and the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs, Agriculture & Innovation.

Can these techniques already be used at the crime scene? 
The CSI Lab has been completed, but the CSI The Hague project is still running. During the course of next year, work will continue to connect the diverse systems to one another. Thereafter, we still face the important task of introducing the techniques into everyday practice. It is therefore essential to validate the instruments that are used. This is because in order to use any measuring instruments to secure traces that should eventually be used as evidence in court, it is necessary to establish precisely how accurate the measurements are and what the possible deviation in each case is. This step still needs to be taken.

Is the CSI Lab already available for use?
Generally speaking, the CSI Lab is ready to be used. Over the coming year, it will mainly serve to further improve the techniques used within CSI The Hague and to develop items such as training modules. When the CSI The Hague project finishes, the management of the lab will be transferred to the NFI Academy. The Academy will then ulilise the lab intensively to train professionals in the forensic world. The CSI Lab is unique in the world. The consortium is planning to reconstruct the concept in other locations too, so that police forces, law courts and judges all over the world can make use of a virtual training and demonstration facility.