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In January of 2000,
to address the soaring backlog of computer evidence processing, the Dallas Division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Texas began seeding
a concept to include federal, state and local computer forensic examiners to address the needs of all law enforcement in the North Texas region.
The premise was simple. To provide no cost examination of computer and digital evidence to all law enforcement agencies throughout the 137 counties that comprise the North Texas region. Some of these agencies had no where else to turn and little resources to meet the growing demands.
By the end of the
year, 11 new computer forensic examiners were selected from eight local agencies and one federal agency. They were trained and equipped to compliment the existing four examiners.
By the end of the year, over 2.6 terabytes
of digital evidence was examined for a variety of federal agencies and local agencies small enough to have no full-time detectives. In 2001, the NTRCFL became the first FBI Laboratory-affiliated RCFL and subscribes to all procedures and guidelines of the FBI Lab to ensure evidence integrity and quality assurance. In 2001, the NTRCFL processed over
6.3 terabytes of digital evidence and in 2002, 14.6 terabytes were examined. In 2003, 26.3 terabytes were examined.
More firsts in 2004
saw the NTRCFL become the first RCFL and federally-funded computer forensic in the United States to become ASCLD/LAB accredited. It was the second laboratory ever to be accredited in digital forensics.
In FY 2007, the NTRCFL examined over 44.4 terabytes of digital evidence in 404 cases. This is an average of about 37 cases per examiner. Each case varies widely, but the average digital evidence per case was 109.9 gigabytes.
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