Combining Physical and Digital Evidence in Vehicle Environments

Abstract

Traditional forensic investigations of vehicles aims at gathering physical evidence since most crimes involving vehicles are physical. However, in the near future digital crimes on vehicles will most likely surge, and therefore it will be necessary to also gather digital evidence. In this paper, we investigate the possibilities of combining physical and digital evidence in forensic investigations of vehicle crime scenes. We show that digital evidence can be used to improve the investigation of physical crimes and, respectively, that physical evidence can be used to improve the investigation of digital crimes. We also recognize that by gathering purely physical or digital evidence certain crimes cannot be solved. Finally, we show that by combining physical and digital evidence it is possible to distinguish between different types of physical and digital crime.