A UK forensic science expert and entrepreneur has launched a ground-breaking app that quietly captures legally admissible forensic evidence of abuse to support police investigations.
The app, called Injury Capture, was launched last week by Simon Franc, the founder and CEO of Forensic Equity, an independent forensic science service provider in the UK that works to ensure all forensic evidence presented in criminal cases is both fair and accurate.
Working with Forensic Equality, Franc said he saw first-hand the low rates of conviction in domestic abuse cases—according to the UK government, 77% of reported incidents are unable to proceed to prosecution due to “evidential difficulties.”
Injury Capture turns those difficulties into admissible evidence that can make a case.
The app allows victims that have experienced physical and/or sexual violence to self-capture photographs of their injuries using their own smartphone. All photos have a scaling function, which allows the sizes of bruises and other injuries to be forensically measured after the fact. And, most importantly, the platform guides users to capture photos that are in line with all legal requirements to quality as forensic evidence, including an un-editable time- and date-stamp.
“The app was developed in consultation with police forces, victims’ support organizations, and criminal justice experts,” reads a statement from the company. “It is not only fully compliant with data protection and privacy regulations, but is certified to ensure that the evidence it gathers is legally admissible in a court of law.”
In addition to photos, the app captures and stores supplementary evidence from both the survivor and friends and family, as well. Scene images, videos, sounds, medical records, notes, messages, eyewitness accounts—all of this can be submitted through the app, which then stores the evidence with the appropriate metadata.
The evidence can be sent to police directly through the app, allowing them to act immediately if need be.
But, survivors don’t have to submit the evidence right away. For many, many reasons, survivors of abuse often do not consult law enforcement immediately following an attack, if ever. Franc says that’s not a problem—if a victim isn’t able to or chooses not to report the attack immediately, all evidence captured by the app will continue to be available weeks, months and even years after.
“Many victims delay seeking help, and this makes prosecuting and proving a crime much harder. I wanted to make it easy to capture evidence in order to enable justice for the victim, while also making the criminal justice system more efficient,” said Franc. “It empowers the most vulnerable in our society, and those who care about them.”
Survivors of sexual assault and rape are even less likely to report the crime to police, with statistics suggesting fewer than 1 in 6 assaulted women do so. In addition to feelings of embarrassment, humiliation and doubt that law enforcement can actually help, the process of obtaining a sexual assault kit has been described by victims as degrading. With a shortage of sexual assault nurse examiners (SANE), some victims have to drive hours and hours to find a hospital able to perform a rape kit. Then, the victim has to stand naked in a cold room while a stranger spends hours photographing, fingerprinting, swabbing and prodding at their already battered body. While nothing—at the moment—can replace DNA collected by a SANE during a rape kit, Injury Capture could at least give survivors a little more control, allowing them to collect their own photographs.
The company said they also hope the app will increase early guilty pleas in the same way police-worn body cameras did. For example, a study of Police Scotland found that over 90% of all crime cases involving body cams resulted in early guilty pleas. This could prevent the victim from having to go through the trial process—which is known to be harmful for survivors’ mental recovery—and saves on justice system time and resources.
“My hope is that with better quality evidence which can be retained, we will get more successful convictions, and those who might contemplate violent crimes will think again. Meanwhile, their victims will have the confidence to report the crimes knowing they have the best opportunity for justice,” said Franc.
Photo: Injury Capture allows survivors to take photos of their injuries and upload supporting media, such as medical records and videos. Credit: Injury Capture.