Why Hansken?

The average amount of digital evidence found by investigators in criminal cases doubles every fifteen months. In order to continue to make these increasing amounts of data rapidly and easily accessible and searchable, the Hansken Community continuously works on the development of 'Hansken', the forensic big data-analysis platform.

Main advantages of Hansken

There are several insights that make Hansken as a tool relevant and interesting for the law enforcement case research:

  • Improved investigative capacity and speed - Analysis capacity increases because case detectives can independently investigate digital data and traces. Experts focus on deepening and interpreting identified traces.
  • Big data analysis - Hansken is a platform that is specifically developed for digital forensic investigations that contain large amounts (up to hundreds of Terabytes) of data.
  • Improved investigative results - Case detectives can concurrently investigate large quantities of data coherently. Parties can bundle their forces (capacity and knowledge) for further developing the platform. Stored and automated knowledge is actively shared amongst all crime cases.
  • Increased innovation - Digital forensic knowledge is strengthened and enlarged by (inter)national cooperation. Parties can connect existing tools and libraries to the platform and develop their own extensions.
  • High quality reporting - The quality and transparency of case reports increases since the Hansken platform implements legal and forensic principles. For each trace, the chains of evidence and custody are in place.
  • Optimized organizational integration -
    • Use of the platform makes it possible for parties to easily cooperate and bundle their investigative forces while maintaining the forensic quality. 
    • Case detectives are enabled to independently investigate digital data and traces without being directly supported by digital forensic experts. Experts focus on deepening and interpreting identified traces. In this way, case investigations are sped up and a substantial contribution to solving the need for more digital forensic expertise is provided.

Strength: work together in a community

But Hansken is more than just a tool. It is also a community in which users share forensic knowledge and very important: work together on the development of the platform. For example, UI development, backend development and plug-ins, which become available in a shared Hansken app store and can be used directly in ongoing cases by all members.

The Hansken Community is for and by international law enforcement and intelligence agencies, and is a non-profit collaboration.