Controversy has been raging around ISO 17025 ever since the standard was adopted for digital forensics back in October 2017. Although many people who work in the industry agree that standardisation is advisable and probably necessary if we are to keep moving forward, there have been many criticisms of ISO 17025 and its effectiveness when it comes to digital forensics.

The baseline of the problem seems to be that ISO 17025 was not specifically designed for digital forensics; instead, it takes the standards of ‘wet’ or traditional forensics and applies them to computing devices. This has a number of issues, not least the fact that technological advances are constantly happening; in a field where most large apps are being updated a couple of times per month as a minimum, it becomes very difficult to properly standardise tools and methodologies.

Another concern for many people is the cost associated with accrediting…