EP 89 | Robert Wyman | Mobile Devices for Forensic Documentation

Mobile Devices for Forensic Documentation | EP 89 | Robert Wyman | Sep 7, 2023 | 2PM Eastern
 
Join us for an insightful interview on Forensic Talks with Robert Wyman, President of Wyman Enterprises, Inc. With a wealth of experience, Mr. Wyman specializes in offering Forensic Photography and Evidence Documentation services. His expertise spans various fields, including personal injury, wrongful death, premises liability, as well as investigations into homicide, robbery, battery, fraud, criminal negligence, and public corruption cases.

Mr. Wyman holds the distinction of being recognized as an Expert Witness in both Federal and State courts, along with local jurisdictions. His contributions have made a significant impact on the field, with his work being featured in multiple publications, including books on Traffic Crash Reconstruction and Evidence Documentation, as well as numerous articles in renowned magazines and industry newsletters.

One of Robert's remarkable contributions is his advocacy for the use of cost-effective tools, mobile devices, and smartphone apps in preserving and documenting evidence at crime and crash scenes. This advocacy has sometimes faced resistance due to misconceptions surrounding personal cell phone usage in forensics. In this exclusive interview, Robert will share his unique perspective on how mobile devices are revolutionizing the forensic documentation landscape. He will also provide valuable tips and recommendations for cutting-edge apps that can be instrumental in enhancing evidence collection and documentation at crash and crime scenes.

Don't miss this opportunity to gain insights from an industry leader and innovator. Tune in to Forensic Talks and discover how technology is reshaping the future of forensic documentation.

Originally Aired On: September 9, 2021

Transcript

00;00;29;29 - 00;00;50;01
Speaker
Hey everyone, it's Eugene here. And welcome back to another forensics talks. This is episode 89 and yeah, we've had a little bit of a summer break. We're all back here and I think September is sort of like the getting close to the end of the summer. It's not officially, but, you know, everybody's back at work and I'm eager to get back to it.

00;00;50;01 - 00;00;54;11
Speaker
So, I'm really happy with our guest today, who is Robert Wyman.

00;00;54;11 - 00;01;00;02
Speaker
and Robert is the president of Wyman Enterprises Inc, and he's located in Sunrise, Florida.

00;01;00;03 - 00;01;01;18
Speaker
And it's appropriate name.

00;01;01;18 - 00;01;13;02
Speaker
His main focus is on forensic photography and evidence, documentation, service services. But he works both on the civil and criminal side, and he offers actually a really wide range of services, whether it's for

00;01;13;02 - 00;01;21;07
Speaker
injury and scar documentation. He works with cell phone localization, he does work with site mapping and documentation,

00;01;21;07 - 00;01;23;29
Speaker
timing, analysis, traffic signal stuff

00;01;23;29 - 00;01;24;25
Speaker
code compliance.

00;01;24;25 - 00;01;26;03
Speaker
So, he has

00;01;26;03 - 00;01;46;06
Speaker
a very large bag of tricks, let's call it up to see if he's been doing this for some time now. I first met Robert. Oh geez, it was actually on the phone. So, we had we've had some really great phone calls, but for a long time we never met face to face. And so, I most recently saw him at the IEI that was in Maryland, which was great to see him.

00;01;46;11 - 00;02;09;28
Speaker
I saw him at Rick's conference, which was in Florida as well, and he was also a speaker, along with a colleague of his, Larry Stringham at the Forensic Photography Symposium. And it was there that they first started presenting about using phones and apps for crash and crime scenes and so that sort of got me thinking about sort of

00;02;09;28 - 00;02;15;00
Speaker
some of my prejudice against, you know, using mobile phones and things like that.

00;02;15;07 - 00;02;20;23
Speaker
And I thought it was a pretty interesting presentation and that's why he's going to be here today. So let me bring him on in.

00;02;20;23 - 00;02;36;21
Speaker
There he is. Hey, Robert, how you doing? Good afternoon and thanks for having me. Hey, great. Well, you know, I've always appreciated the hour-long phone conversations that seem to keep going and going. But I mean, you're a very how can they say your intense you're passionate about what you do and stuff.

00;02;36;21 - 00;02;40;06
Speaker
So, yeah, I've always appreciated our conversations.

00;02;40;06 - 00;03;03;04
Speaker
Thank you. So, let's talk about well, let's go back actually, let's talk about before what you were doing. Now you were what got you into this area? Were you a photographer before? Were you doing something different? Like what? What? What? How did you fall into this? Try to be brief here. You know, we're talking about a lot of history.

00;03;03;07 - 00;03;31;28
Speaker
I did not get into photography until I started working for the Miami Dade County Department of Traffic and Transportation. I started as an engineering aid part time right after high school, actually, and this was in the film camera days. And they used photography to document hazardous locations and traffic problems and things like that. Since I was the new kid on the block and the junior kid on the block, they sent me out into the heat and the mosquitos and the rain and everything else with the camera.

00;03;31;28 - 00;03;54;29
Speaker
So, they didn't have to do it. But that's how I was introduced to this, and it blossomed from there. I was never into like yearbook in high school or any other photography type of thing. So, it started at that point and eventually I stopped using the county's camera, which was some old relic contacts, maybe SRT 1.1 or something for those who remember those days.

00;03;55;01 - 00;04;12;21
Speaker
And I bought my own camera, which was a Nikon, and just went forward from there through the years with all different brands, all different technologies and to the point where we're at today. Okay, Now, so, so back then, did you have to develop your own film that did what kinds of resources did the police agency have?

00;04;12;24 - 00;04;34;19
Speaker
It was the traffic department, actually, and they had a contract with a local lab. So, all I had to do was take film out of a cabinet county jail, purchase film, do my thing, turn it into a supervisor. Eventually got over to the photo lab. I developed it a week or so later. I'd get four by six prints back and put them in the file and move on to the next one.

00;04;34;22 - 00;04;51;21
Speaker
Like when I look at all the stuff you're doing, I mean, obviously at some point you decided to go on your own and do all these things. But there's like, I mean, I look at the list of things, there's a ton of things that you're interested in, and it seems like you've always been interested in like devices and technology.

00;04;51;22 - 00;05;18;17
Speaker
Like you seem like a tech kind of guy. So how can you describe sort of the path from photography to like some of these other things that you were interested in? Sure. And I'm just waiting for somebody to type in, somebody who knows me, to type in on the right-hand side of my screen, their inspector gadget, because I have been called that many times with the little devices that I've purchased over the years.

00;05;18;19 - 00;05;48;28
Speaker
But yeah, photography is where it all started. And the evolution or the progression was such that the next thing that caught my eye was G.P.S. GPS devices came out first. Let me just say consumer GPS devices came out in the late nineties and they were very large, very heavy. They were called portable, but they were far from really portable, and they were made for the marine industry, the little Garmin hiking GPS system, things like that were years away.

00;05;49;00 - 00;06;12;25
Speaker
But I was able to obtain one of those and I thought this would be really cool. In the traffic engineering world, not so much for accommodation and photography. That came a little later, but for doing some studies, traffic studies, and one of those was called a travel time study where we actually drive a route to see what the real-world delays are with traffic congestion and traffic signals and things like that.

00;06;12;28 - 00;06;39;25
Speaker
So, I use that device for that. And I was sold I mean, when garbage came out, I was purchasing those and all different models. And so more recently the survey quality pieces from Trimble and others. So, it's just continued. But the, the device side of it was photography, two jeeps and then the jeeps augmented the photography by allowing me to produce exhibits to show where I was taking the pictures.

00;06;39;28 - 00;07;00;05
Speaker
I would be able to record latitude and longitude and make maps to show where I was. So that was a big leap. Other things that I get into, like audio, video forensics and things like that were just interest and I was asked to do them one of those things, hey, can you do this? And I was thinking I might be able to do that.

00;07;00;07 - 00;07;22;05
Speaker
And again, we're going back many years. So, there were no training courses. Everything was seat of your pants self taught if you became proficient rate, if you didn't, you moved on to something else. Now, of course, you could do courses in everything. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. So, what about, what about, like little technologies and things like that? We're obviously going to be talking about these mobile devices.

00;07;22;12 - 00;07;44;05
Speaker
And so, I'm wondering about early on the adoption of things like do you remember the PalmPilot? Like the PalmPilot and things like that? Like, were those were any of those things like items that you might have used in your work? All of them. I spent way too much money on all of those things. The Palm Pilots there was a company called Sharp.

00;07;44;05 - 00;08;10;03
Speaker
I don't know if Sharp is around anymore, but they had these little pockets organized things. Sony had some stuff. There were a few others I don't remember. But yeah, I embraced all of that. I used to carry around one of those planner books, one of those binder, three ring binder planner books. That was my daily companion for the calendar, for the contact list, for notes, for everything.

00;08;10;03 - 00;08;32;21
Speaker
I never left my side, but when these electronic organizers came out, it was like, wait a second, I can put hundreds of phone numbers in here and search them and search them instantly. I could put all my calendar stuff in here and filter them color, code them, search them. Everything that I was doing in that three-ring binder could be done in this little electronic device.

00;08;32;21 - 00;09;01;04
Speaker
And I love that. I just thought that was incredibly efficient. And as that technology blossomed with the different devices and manufacturers, I just kept spending money and kept moving on and buying new stuff. Yeah, with respect to the adoption of new technology, I mean, you mentioned film and I was I remember I was a kid and I remember taking a summer school course in photography and developing film and going out with the film cameras and everything.

00;09;01;07 - 00;09;24;08
Speaker
But for me, the transition to digital was really I my eyes just lit up on fire when I could afford it. And I remember exactly where I was. Actually, I was in Buffalo, New York. I was at a grocery store, and they had a section that like a separate counter or whatever with electronics. And I remember seeing this Olympus Digital camera with the really big flash drives, like those little big cards or whatever.

00;09;24;14 - 00;09;40;22
Speaker
And I remember buying that. And for me, the idea of, you know, moving from film to digital wasn't a big leap. I mean, I just I had seen some of it and I thought, this is this is incredible. Even though even though the original digital cameras weren't that great in comparison to today, I mean, you just can't compare.

00;09;40;24 - 00;10;16;13
Speaker
But do you remember a time or was there any was there any resistance from going from film to digital initially at the you know, with policing resistance in bold letters with the capitals and flashing lights behind it? Yes, I to the point where some agencies would say back then, we will never go to digital, we will always have negatives, because negatives are what's in our file as evidence of what we did or documentation of what we did on scene.

00;10;16;15 - 00;10;48;01
Speaker
We'll never go to digital. That technology is never going to catch on and it's never going to be as good as film on and on and on. So, I had heard that before because I'm old enough to have gone through some of these evolutions. And the previous time when that issue came up was when videotape came out prior to videotape, VHS and data, police agencies and news organizations used film cameras, motion picture cameras, like 16-millimeter old, big old things.

00;10;48;01 - 00;11;11;13
Speaker
You put on your shoulder. And all of a sudden, the videotape came out and there was a great resistance to using that in the public safety sector, because you literally this was the argument. You could not hold up a strip of videotape to the light and see your images as you could with the 16-millimeter film cameras. So, the argument was, we don't know if this was edited.

00;11;11;13 - 00;11;31;12
Speaker
We don't know if this was cut, because editing film back then, you literally cut the film, did splices, did whatever you did. You couldn't do that in the same way with video. So, there was resistance that we don't know what's on this tape unless we play it, and we don't know if it's we don't know the sanctity of the of the recording.

00;11;31;12 - 00;11;48;29
Speaker
We don't know if it's been altered or not. So of course, it took several years for it to catch on and eventually it did. And now you don't see anybody with a motion picture camera roaming around and you don't even see people with VHS beta cameras, videotape cameras running around. So, yeah, the resistance of the public safety sector is real.

00;11;49;02 - 00;12;13;04
Speaker
It happens every time there's a technology leap. It usually takes, I'd say, 3 to 5 years before everybody gets on board and they throw up a bunch of excuses at the beginning of why we shouldn't do it. But by the end it's like, why did we make such a big deal about this? But it happens every time. Do you remember when you had your first, let's say, smart mobile device or smartphone or whatever?

00;12;13;04 - 00;12;39;27
Speaker
What when was that for you? And when did you have the realization that, hey, you could use this for other things that work? There was I'm trying to remember the brand might have been Nokia or one of the older brands may have even been a motorola. They came out with a phone that had accessories and the accessories plugged into the power port at the bottom of the phone or the side of the phone or whatever.

00;12;40;00 - 00;12;56;20
Speaker
I don't remember which brand it was, but it had a camera, and this was a novelty back then. This was like, wait a second, the phone and a camera. Why would anybody want to combine those two? There was just no thought to that. There was no consumer research that said, oh yeah, everybody wants to have a phone in their pocket.

00;12;56;27 - 00;13;14;13
Speaker
It was unheard of. Nobody carried around cameras unless you were a photographer or had some reason to. So, the phone came out with this little add on camera and it was VGA, as I recall, like 640 by 480, if I'm getting my numbers right, very low resolution. But it was a novelty item. It was like, look what I can do with my phone.

00;13;14;13 - 00;13;33;10
Speaker
I could take a picture and that picture shows up on the phone's screen. So, for me, that was like, okay, this might be the future. It's not good enough for prime time. It's not ready for prime time right now. But I think it's foretelling what's going to come down the pike if technology marches on. So, I remember that one.

00;13;33;10 - 00;13;54;20
Speaker
But I didn't really start embracing the smartphone thing until I got an iPhone. And then, of course, you had everything built in cameras and audio and apps and everything else was all integrated, and we had never had that before. When did you get your first iPhone? I was trying to think I think the iPhone three or like a 3G or a three something.

00;13;54;22 - 00;14;16;17
Speaker
I think that was my first one. I don't remember the year; I'm guessing mid 2000 whenever that came out. But I think it was that that three model which was my very first one. Yeah. So, I mean along the way obviously there's been a lot of apps and things like that which, you know, are made for the iPhone and there's been other things that they've jammed in in terms of sensors and things.

00;14;16;20 - 00;14;35;07
Speaker
So what like when, when did you start saying, Hey, I can use a whole bunch of these apps to do work like you started even trying to convince other people are doing presentations and, you know, saying, hey, folks, like there's all these tools and these phones that are apps that you can use and they're very useful.

00;14;35;07 - 00;14;55;18
Speaker
So, was that like later, like 2012 or around that time? And what were these apps that you were using at that time? I don't remember the year, but certainly there was a progression shortly after I got the iPhone, I was bombarded. I think everybody was with emails and advertisements from Apple to go to the App Store and look at stuff.

00;14;55;18 - 00;15;16;03
Speaker
And of course, they were selling products to the App Store. So that was their motivation. But I would go there and do keyword searches and I was astounded at the number of apps that were being written by developers that could be put into service and in many different industries. I started the photography apps and then moved on and did keyword searches for other things.

00;15;16;05 - 00;15;42;22
Speaker
And eventually I would do keyword searches for like the word forensics or trajectory or blood spatter or whatever it was. 99% of the stuff that I'd get back from the App Store. As far as the list of items were games, people were writing games more than anything else. So, I'd have to filter through all the games that had a keyword of forensics or something and find the little gems that were in there.

00;15;42;22 - 00;16;11;16
Speaker
And some of those gems were written by programmers who were also CSI or engineers, and they were trying to establish the fact that the phone could be used for something. So, I purchased some of them. I downloaded the free ones, I started using them, and lo and behold, there were quite a few that had a place, at least in my practice, I was private at that point, so I didn't have to worry about government approval or I.T. department approvals or things like that.

00;16;11;16 - 00;16;31;03
Speaker
I had the freedom downloading something, using it, deciding about 100, not deleting it if I wanted it, etc. But yeah, there were a lot of apps. Most of them are gone now. The developers haven't kept up with it, but there's still some poor ones there that are very useful, I think. And Crash Recon and crime scene. Crime scene, Investigation and recon.

00;16;31;05 - 00;16;51;13
Speaker
So, let's talk about photography for a second because I think that's one that is most familiar with everybody and sort of most apparent because everybody uses their mobile phones now for photography with family and video. And these things are jam packed. So, there's been a lot of developments in terms of the, you know, the sensor size and the quality of the lenses and things like that.

00;16;51;18 - 00;17;18;01
Speaker
But can you say something about the level of control and the way that the photos are created inside of the app? You know, because yeah, like sometimes in just my experience, sometimes I just take a photo with my phone and it comes out exactly as I want where, as I get the digital camera, the white balance is off or, you know, I mean, something, something different.

00;17;18;01 - 00;17;39;08
Speaker
I got to mess with it a little bit more. It's not to say that I can't get what I need. It just sometimes a little bit more work, but it just seems like sometimes you just get what you want with the iPhone and just wondering if you have any comments about that. Sure. There's an old saying that the best camera to have the best camera out there is the camera you have with you.

00;17;39;11 - 00;18;07;16
Speaker
That's an old saying. We even from the film days when people would compare Nikon and Canon and Olympus and later on, Middleton altered Sony and the rest of them. What's the best camera out there? The one you have with you that has been embraced, it seems, by the programmers of smartphones because they have developed systems and the miniaturization just blows me away that they can put all the stuff at such a small area because we're all used to holding a camera in our hands, a DSLR or something large.

00;18;07;19 - 00;18;35;25
Speaker
And yet all of this is being miniaturized and their programing is such where however they've done it, they've nailed what we used to call or still call the exposure triangle, that balance of shutter speed, aperture and ISO the sensitivity of the camera, they've nailed it. And yeah, you can usually get a very good picture first time out without a lot of trial and error.

00;18;35;28 - 00;18;58;07
Speaker
Just pulling that phone out of your pocket and taking the picture that you want it. Absolutely is amazing and that's why I think that tool is so valuable. It's just not a novelty anymore. Like it started out 20 some odd years ago. I want to play a little clip from Larry Stringham, who was your Co-Present at the Forensic Photography symposium.

00;18;58;15 - 00;19;23;11
Speaker
And he was a I guess, the forensic supervisor at the Cape Coral Police Department since retired. So, I believe he's enjoying his retirement. But before I play this, could you just explain like you met him, and you guys had some common interests? I had been I evolved my list of apps that were useful for Traffic Crash Recon, and that's where I started.

00;19;23;11 - 00;19;52;00
Speaker
It was all traffic crash oriented. So, I had been publishing a list, first book for myself and then other I made other colleagues aware of it, so I would be sending them out eventually. That evolved to doing seminars and conferences, presenting what I called my apps list and showing examples of what you could do with a phone for traffic crash recon, everything from the photography to video mapping, aerial photos, calculations, everything.

00;19;52;02 - 00;20;16;18
Speaker
So, I also integrated with the crime scene investigation world in addition to the traffic crash reconstruction world, and I attend those conventions as well. Low and behold on the agenda list one year was Larry Strader and he was doing an APS presentation oriented toward crime scene investigation. So of course, I had to see that. And we actually had a lot of commonalities in the apps that we had chosen.

00;20;16;18 - 00;20;43;24
Speaker
But he had subspecialty ones that he had found for Crash Rica for Crime Scene Recon. I had mine that I had found for Crash Records. So basically, after that seminar went up, shook his head and said, we need to talk. And that evolved into a series of dual or code presentations that we did for local and national II conferences around the country, showing off the apps and showing what could be done even back then.

00;20;43;24 - 00;21;06;06
Speaker
And this was we're now talking probably maybe eight years ago, five, six, seven, eight years ago. So yeah, he noticed the same thing as far as the usefulness of the smartphones in the crime scene world. So, it was a parallel course and I found that really interesting and very enjoyable to work with him. Well, let me play the video clip and then he mentioned something in the clip that I'm going to ask you about after.

00;21;06;06 - 00;21;10;04
Speaker
So, let's go ahead and do this. It's only a couple of minutes and then we'll be right back. Then.

00;21;10;04 - 00;21;33;19
Speaker
Well, I'd like to talk about 2016. That's the last time that I used a deal as our SLR on the scene. I only used iPhones from 2016 until I retired all my and I was a supervisor, and all my employees still had the deals are and SLR ready and available for them, but they were able to use their iPhones or their androids as well.

00;21;33;19 - 00;21;59;13
Speaker
But they chose not to. They always used their cameras. I got to one particular scene, though, deep in the woods and in the cave. That's very difficult to find. But we found the one area that had deep in the woods, and you weren't able to carry material back. You had to walk back there. And if you've ever worked in the scenes or in Deep in the Woods, which when I worked for Hernando County, you're carrying bucket loads of things with you and different types of handles.

00;21;59;13 - 00;22;19;27
Speaker
And such situations like that can be rather cumbersome. I decided just to bring my phone with me, and I was able to get my azimuth reading. I was able to get my GPS. I was able to get all the photographs, videos, panoramic views. I was able to use a couple of different apps to do measuring, and I did everything from my iPhone.

00;22;19;27 - 00;22;42;02
Speaker
And it's at that time that I found out that the cell phone was available and ready to go, and it was usable. And that's when the decision for me was to go out with iPhone as much as possible. And before I did that, I actually went to the state attorney's office and asked them the admissibility. And they looked at me and they said, how many times has your phone ever been?

00;22;42;02 - 00;23;05;06
Speaker
Not your phone, but your camera ever been subpoenaed for download? And I go, never. He goes like, well, what would be the difference if you have a well-written P overall written general order about downloading? There should be no issue. And to be truthful, I got asked on the stand once and that was it. Yeah. So, the major question there had to do with this subpoena thing.

00;23;05;06 - 00;23;32;00
Speaker
And I've heard this before too, you know, like I heard people saying, Hey, don't use your personal phone because, you know, they can they're going to rip the phone out of your hands and they're going to, you know, put it into evidence or something like that. And so did you hear a lot of the same arguments early on and what have you found with respect to really using, you know, your phone for you knows, for crime scenes or crash scenes that thought was prevalent early on.

00;23;32;00 - 00;24;07;22
Speaker
It is still out there today in some agencies. There are some agencies out there, state attorney's offices or district attorney's offices, as well as the actual law enforcement agency policies and procedures that refuse to acknowledge the availability and the just the excellence of imaging and other documentation efforts that you can do with a phone. With that said, other agencies slowly have been embracing them.

00;24;07;23 - 00;24;37;13
Speaker
Some of them have their own rules. You could only use an agency issued for not a personal phone. Some of them will have very strict download requirements, which are really the same as the DSL law. Almost every agency has some type of policy of when the images are downloaded from a camera and put into some type of evidence locker or onto a secure server or whatever the procedure is, usually a CSI has to do that.

00;24;37;16 - 00;25;06;28
Speaker
So, I'll just say shortly after their shift, shortly after they take the pictures, they're not going to wait six weeks to download some images. It's going to be relatively set within hours or days. And those types of policies also fit for Android or iPhone camera use. If you download everything in a proper amount of time following procedures, then there should be no problem in terms of have I ever heard of anybody having their phones looked at?

00;25;06;28 - 00;25;31;05
Speaker
Never across the entire country. I've heard the argument we can't use our phones because somebody else or, you know, defense attorney will we'll take our phones. Obviously, if it's a criminal case on a civil side and not so much worry about that, but it still comes out. So, I have not heard of anybody having to surrender their phones at any time for any type of inspection.

00;25;31;07 - 00;25;57;03
Speaker
And what I tell people these days, especially when I'm teaching a course or something, is if that question comes up, repeat exactly what Larry Stringham said. How many times has your DSLR been demanded to be produced so that it can be inspected? No, but I see that in a class. And perhaps with this audience too, people say, no, you know, nobody's ever looked at our DSLRs, nobody has ever.

00;25;57;06 - 00;26;21;12
Speaker
And I'll brought it out. For those of you who use audio recording devices, digital voice recorders, how many times has the recorder been demanded to be presented for inspection? And the answer is never. And that's the that's the answer. I'd like to see the state attorneys and district attorneys use as well. If there is a defense attorney demand to see a phone, there should be a counter to that.

00;26;21;12 - 00;26;42;23
Speaker
It shouldn't be. Oh, yeah, here's the phone. It's like, why do you need the phone? The phone is a tool and the phone records images and, you know, we're talking photography just like the DSLR does. So, we will provide you with the images because that is what our output is. You do not need to see the tool, and anything else on that tool is irrelevant to this case.

00;26;42;25 - 00;27;00;13
Speaker
So there does have to be a strong pushback in case something comes in like that. But I am seeing in the comments here that some people have had to give up their phones. It's a surprise to me. I've never heard that before. But again, I think a strong pushback is the proper answer. There's no reason to show off the hardware.

00;27;00;15 - 00;27;20;26
Speaker
The hardware is just that hardware. It's the images, which is your output and the result of your photographic effort. Okay, for now, yeah. Neil had posted that he's had some phones taken and I would love to know what happened there. Neil So if you're listening, go ahead and maybe give us a little summary in the comments here. It'd be interesting to understand what happened.

00;27;20;28 - 00;27;42;11
Speaker
But definitely it's not it's not something that's common that I've heard of. But let me ask you this, though. I mean, you've probably seen a large uptake in people using their mobile phones, for example, at vehicle inspections and things like this, especially on the private side. No, Correct on the private side especially, but also because of the quality, especially on the video.

00;27;42;14 - 00;28;17;15
Speaker
Everybody still walking around with cameras. But on the video side, I'm seeing almost, I don't know, 80% or more use of the phone for video because the video quality is so amazing and nobody's walking around with camcorders anymore or anything like that. The only people that I know that are still embracing the camcorder style use are the private investigators who are doing surveillance, and they will be using those in surveillance environments because they'll have large zoom lenses and low light capabilities and things like that which are suitable for surveillance.

00;28;17;17 - 00;28;47;17
Speaker
But as far as up-close daytime or even evening crash investigation, vehicle inspection, site inspection, obscene, almost 100% like, say 80% or more phone use for the video side. You'd mentioned to me one time that you use like GPS, you do a lot of stuff with GPS and also for like your photography. So, are you using any apps for obtaining GPS information along with your phone or something?

00;28;47;21 - 00;29;13;25
Speaker
With the phone and the camera together? Yes. When I'm not using the phone as the photographic device that I'm using my camera, I transition to Sony many years ago when Sony actually Sony bought out in a note for those of you who remember old Sony bought out Minolta at the end of the film days and Sony transitioned everything to their product was which was from the beginning excuse me a digital product.

00;29;13;27 - 00;29;42;10
Speaker
So, I had an old two lenses. I had an older camera back then. So, I went right over to Sony because I could use the same lenses and I've been with them ever since. Now I've seen that because the Sony cameras and perhaps the newer Nikon's and Canon's and others, I'm just not sure. But the Sony cameras do have an app where the camera body will talk to the phone via Bluetooth Wi-Fi or add combination, and the phone is recording the trips.

00;29;42;10 - 00;30;14;08
Speaker
As long as your location services are on, I mean, that's constant. So, the camera, the Sony app extracts that information sensor to the camera body and embeds it into the metadata, into the EXIF data of the image. So, when I download those images, I have latitude and longitude right there with every image, and I use that quite a bit because a lot of times I'll do multiple assignments in a day and they might be widely spaced-out different times, different environments.

00;30;14;10 - 00;30;38;29
Speaker
I generally do know where I'm at in the world too, as far as where the assignments are, but it's also very nice to produce a map and say, here’s where all the pictures were taken. Here's this assignment or that assignment. Or if one assignment has multiple locations, I might look at a scene across site at an intersection, and then go to my insurance holding yard to look at the vehicle and then go somewhere else to look at some other vehicle.

00;30;39;01 - 00;30;59;11
Speaker
I can produce a map that shows all of these locations, the dates, the times, the duration of time I was there. So, it answers a lot of questions when it comes to testimony down the road, what I did and how I did it. So, you take the GPS data, and do you put it into like a over a Google Maps thing or do you just take a map and you just start locating it that way?

00;30;59;13 - 00;31;26;15
Speaker
I download the information either through. Generally, I have different ones. I've got Garmin apps, I've got an online system called GPS Visualizer, which is a free website. There are a few GPS devices out there. So, another one that's a Windows based only called GPS utility. And all of these will take latitude and longitude to translate them into other formats.

00;31;26;17 - 00;31;55;13
Speaker
So, I download the latitude and longitude usually through a better data reader. So that's the first step that'll get those latitude and longitude off of the list of images. Those are going to excel. I could change the labels, I could name them, do whatever I want with them in Excel, and then from Excel it will go into one of those GPS programs and the output that I select from the GPS program is Google Earth.

00;31;55;16 - 00;32;16;05
Speaker
So, what I get out of the GPS program is a cmll image Cmll plan that goes into Google Earth and now everything's automatically plotted. I have an instant exhibit to show where everything was. I could color coded, I could change the icons, I could add labels and produce a finished exhibit within just a few minutes and then move on to the next.

00;32;16;10 - 00;32;38;16
Speaker
So, it's for me, a very there's multiple steps, but it's still very easy. And by end result is something that's ready for court. Right? Right. Done. And there Ready for a deposition. Ready for testimony. Yeah. I had a colleague, an old friend of mine, I would say a colleague friend Zach Gorski up here in Canada, and he would use the phone like the accelerometer apps.

00;32;38;23 - 00;33;00;10
Speaker
And so, he would actually mount on vehicles, and he'd drive vehicles through, and you could see the X, Y and Z plots of acceleration. I thought it was super cool. And he did a great job, and he would accompany that with camera footage and stuff and video. So, I thought that was really, really neat. Are there any apps that you're using?

00;33;00;13 - 00;33;31;04
Speaker
Not so much for photography, but for also for like mapping other mapping purposes? I highly recommend CO2 light and CO2 Light is a surveying app. It has been recommended by one of the surveying associations as being an accurate thing. I don't remember the exact name of the association, but it does have some type of association blessing that a licensed surveyor can actually use this app.

00;33;31;07 - 00;34;07;06
Speaker
It's not going to replace the larger, you know, laser scanners, total stations, optical instruments, but it does provide quite a bit of great information along with photo or video, as to what, you know, GPS, your compass, direction, azimuth altitude, the attitude of the phone, meaning like pan tilt and roll your axis measurements are all there. So, I haven't used that quite a bit on some of my assignments and we could go into the examples if you want, but that's a really good one.

00;34;07;09 - 00;34;28;16
Speaker
Microsoft Office is out there now. You could do an entire Microsoft Office right on your phone or tablet that's extremely useful on. And just to go backwards for a second, you mentioned the accelerometer. Yes, I did do some tests for those at some of the crash conferences, and they were good. I mean, what we found was the commercial accelerometer devices.

00;34;28;19 - 00;34;48;10
Speaker
I think one of them is race logic, and there might be a few others out there. They had a very a higher sampling rate. So, it was more useful to the crash reconstructionist to have a very high sampling rate. I mean, hundreds of points per second instead of the lower sampling rate and limited memory that was in the phones.

00;34;48;10 - 00;35;08;02
Speaker
But it still worked. When we plotted the graphs, they were parallel. You know, they were they were the same as the larger instruments. But for the crash record world and the calculations that are done, the reconstructionists were drawn more to the products that were made for that purpose. Let me ask you about your lead. I'm not familiar with it.

00;35;08;02 - 00;35;32;01
Speaker
So how does it work? Like, do are you like sitting in a position or taking photographs with it and picking a point? How does it work it you bring it up on your screen and it immediately has an overlay, like a heads-up display for the pilots that are out there. What that is, it's just like a clear overlay and it gives you all of your geodetic data right there on the screen.

00;35;32;01 - 00;35;57;15
Speaker
So, as you're moving the phone around, as you're hold it literally, as you're holding it up, it will tell you all your angular measurements, your tilt, your roll, everything. It'll give you your GPS, it'll give you time of day. It'll allow you to do a screenshot or photos, videos with that overlay either on it or remove from it.

00;35;57;18 - 00;36;34;15
Speaker
You could do some rudimentary measurements with it as like a rangefinder. And I'll go ahead and give an example just to show you if let's just say a vehicle went into a canal or a lake and you have a embankment and that embankment has an angle from the main level of the land down the lakeshore or canal shore edge down to the waterline, if you wanted to measure what that angle was, you would literally just stand at the top of the embankment and angle your phone down to match the angle of the embankment.

00;36;34;15 - 00;36;56;17
Speaker
I mean, you're looking at it. You could see what the angle is and then read that angular measurement right off of the phone. So that plus the GPS plus the asthma, your compass direction, it's a really good tool and it's instantly available. There's an initial purchase fee, but there's no usage fee and it's always there ready to go.

00;36;56;17 - 00;37;13;21
Speaker
So that's a very useful one that I really highly, highly recommend. Yeah, that's awesome. I'm going to look into that. I didn't know about this. I've seen some other like measuring apps, like where you can do some simple things, but I didn't know about that one. So yeah, that's a good, good tips. I thank you for that. What about the iPhone and how it integrates with other devices?

00;37;13;21 - 00;37;31;01
Speaker
Because like I have a for example, like a GoPro and you know, you use the phone to view and you know, it'll record and send all that information. So, you know, the phone, even if it doesn't have a built in, whatever it is, you know, a sensor, whatever it is, it, it sort of externally controls other devices too.

00;37;31;01 - 00;37;54;27
Speaker
So, have you used the phone like ever to control your camera or like to do other things like that? Yes. Then highly recommended also both in the crashing world crash reconstruction world and the crime scene world, one of the best uses of that remote control feature where you're using your phone as a viewfinder and as a shutter release for your camera.

00;37;54;27 - 00;38;22;16
Speaker
There's obviously the wireless connection between the phone and the camera. If you had a confined space environment, you're looking up under a seat, under a dashboard, in a wheel well, in an engine compartment underneath the car for the crash people or any kind of confined space environment for the crime scene people in a cabinet under a table, behind a wall cabinet, something like that, a shelving unit.

00;38;22;18 - 00;38;50;18
Speaker
You could position the camera in a way to get that image, but you couldn't position your face next to the camera to be able to see what you're looking at in a viewfinder or at a screen. The phone as a remote control can now be comfortably held even by a second person, and you can get that confined space image perfectly without contorting yourself to get into that small or low or tight area.

00;38;50;21 - 00;39;11;24
Speaker
So yeah, I've used it as a remote control for those types of things. It's very, very useful. Interesting. Just see Jay here, seeing that EXIF tool by Phil Harvey is another useful app that will pull the GPS off of geotagged photos, geo tags, and that's the super, super useful stuff I was going to ask you and I just lost my thought here.

00;39;11;24 - 00;39;27;03
Speaker
Let me get to my notes here for a second because I had a question for you regarding the a comment that you said with the fact that there's there seems to be like a diminishing number of apps now, like before, there may have been more that use and maybe not so many now. And is there a reason for that?

00;39;27;03 - 00;40;00;25
Speaker
Or I could just guess that with all the iOS changes and whatever specifications that Apple has or Google has or whatever in the Android world, Samsung or whomever, that the app developers are just not able to put in as much time as needed to keep up with everything, to keep up with all the development kits, maybe to pay whatever fees are needed for those development kits and all that in relation to their sales.

00;40;00;27 - 00;40;22;01
Speaker
So yeah, there used to be photogrammetry apps, there used to be some very interesting measuring and documentation apps that were out there for the iPhone that are no longer available, things that would do overlays to like walls or would put a grid pattern up on a wall, which might be good for trajectory analysis or blood spatter. And you can take that picture.

00;40;22;01 - 00;40;41;09
Speaker
So, you just look at a wall and bring up the app and a grid pattern would be displayed, and you could fine tune the grid pattern to the proper dimensions of the wall. Take that picture, and now you have an image with a grid pattern, and you could use that for further analysis. So, a lot of the at least the original ones that I had are no longer there.

00;40;41;09 - 00;41;02;03
Speaker
I haven't done a search for those recently, but those app developers unfortunately went away. Now what we have are these core ones, as I mentioned, like Microsoft Office and some of the other ones and things like the OTA light that have been around now for over a decade and that's what's out there. So, there were quite a few specialty items.

00;41;02;08 - 00;41;26;02
Speaker
Another one, just remember, was written by a crime scene investigator, and it was an evidence marker, and it actually turned your phone into a black number on a yellow background evidence marker. Everybody that's in that world is probably thinking of themselves now. Yeah, but if my phone is the evidence marker, don't want to put my phone into that scene and contaminate the scene and everything else.

00;41;26;09 - 00;41;49;16
Speaker
There were, you know, sometimes when I use it mostly outdoors, like the beginning of a skid mark or something like that, where there was no contamination issue. I was just a marker issue and indexing issue. So, you could select the alphanumeric display on your phone, you could select the colors, and basically your phone screen was one of those evidence markers, just like the chance you have on the shelf behind you, that kind of thing, just on the phone.

00;41;49;16 - 00;42;06;04
Speaker
So there have been a few that are out there. Some have gone away, some of the more novelties than anything else. But it's been interesting to see the developments. Yeah, it's pretty interesting. And folks, if any of you have any comments or any favorite apps, go ahead and drop it into the comments. Always interesting to hear what other people are using.

00;42;06;10 - 00;42;37;15
Speaker
And I think I mean, look, there's some companies that are obviously taking this very seriously in terms of, you know, having these mobile devices. And actually, I can see Jeff Gervase is on here and just on the webinar that I did on Tuesday, I mentioned Crime Pad, you know, which is working on a, you know, a tablet and, you know, the fact that you're using it for case management, using it for photographs and you can do the things like sketches, Do you want to do like a quick diagram of your scene, like, you know, so you could use I'm sure there's well, with office, I think there's like an app where you can draw some

00;42;37;15 - 00;43;00;16
Speaker
things. I think a camera would it's called even just the note, the little notepad thing, correct? Yeah. Yeah. You can do some drawing in there as well. And even Exxon. So, you know, Exxon is, you know, they have their capture app and they're using it for interviews, for audio, for, you know, the video photography. And it and it integrates with some of their other devices from what I understand.

00;43;00;16 - 00;43;26;03
Speaker
So, you know, and it takes all that data, and it uploads it to evidence dot com so. Right. Yeah. So let me just jump in. That's a big part of it. Prior to secure servers and subscription services coming on board, which was a real worry as to what do we do with all these images, what do we do with these videos, what do we do with the audio recordings, how do we organize them?

00;43;26;03 - 00;43;48;05
Speaker
So, Crime pad and some of the other ones. So those have come and gone as well. Give you a one stop shop and they allow all of this stuff to be recorded in a single place and securely archived, which was a big worry at the beginning as to what is going to happen and who's going to see it, who has access to it, what kind of passwords, all that kind of stuff.

00;43;48;05 - 00;44;14;03
Speaker
So, we're evolving and we're finding solutions to these problems that seemed insurmountable even just a few years ago. So, what would you say are some of the limitations, though? Like, you know, somebody, you know, saying, well, I'll just use my phone or whatever? I mean, what some of the limitations of using the phone, you know, versus like a nice new mirrorless camera or something like that, where's useful and where's it not useful today?

00;44;14;05 - 00;44;34;20
Speaker
One of my catchphrases that I like to use is it's a tool, not a toy. So, like all tools, you should be familiar it and competent with it for the people who just take that phone out of their pocket or their briefcase and just start, you know, everything as is as you bring up the camera app up, you just start snapping pictures.

00;44;34;22 - 00;45;10;02
Speaker
You're probably not using the full capabilities of that device. Now, if you're outside in a bright, sunny day, you're going to get a great picture. But if you're in a low light situation of a situation with limited contrast, sometimes different colors don't reproduce well, you should practice with your phone and even take courses that are out there now on phone photography to learn how to adjust exposures, how to adjust lighting, how to do different frame rates with video, whatever the specification is that that's out there.

00;45;10;02 - 00;45;41;10
Speaker
There are a variety of options of whether to use flash your built-in phone flash or external lighting. All of these things are out there. And if you take the time to learn how to use them, you'll end up with much better mobile device photos that will certainly could rival your DSLR photos without a doubt. But for those people who don't know what all the little menu items are and all the little options you have, you might be disappointed in the images you get from the phone.

00;45;41;12 - 00;46;08;19
Speaker
Yeah. Do you see a time in the future where, you know, you could see, you know, somebody like a crime scene investigator or something, just, you know, doing the majority of their work on, you know, on their phone? I do. And when Larry and I used to do the classes many years ago, I used to say that I said there will be a time I would say this to the audience probably at the end of your careers, or at least certainly within your careers, where you could stand at the threshold of a room.

00;46;08;19 - 00;46;37;10
Speaker
If that room is a crime scene or the edge of a road for a crash scene and simply paint wand your phone around that area, just, you know, shoot and record everything with three dimensional accuracy, three dimensional views that are high accuracy and be able to use that for further analysis. I think that time will be here. There are some hurdles to overcome.

00;46;37;10 - 00;47;02;14
Speaker
You know, these agency issues, the standard operating procedures and all of the never-ending worry about accreditation and minimum standards and federal standards and all of these things. Again, I think they'll all be overcome in time. They may seem insurmountable now, but I think it'll happen. Okay. You know, Donna saying we've talked about it for the last ten plus years.

00;47;02;14 - 00;47;20;10
Speaker
Yeah, we probably might be another ten plus years before it might be another ten years before things start to change. We'll see. Well, I think it might be. I think I know that there are agencies now that are issuing better phones to people. Oftentimes, agencies are giving people cheap phones. Right. They're not giving their CSI people.

00;47;20;15 - 00;47;47;28
Speaker
But I have seen a trend more recently where people in the crime scene investigation or people that the investigators, they're getting some upgraded equipment. So, they're either getting like an upgraded iPad or they're getting better phones with some more capabilities with the different sensors like the lighter and, you know, they're making an investment in some different apps. Or at the very least, I know there's many agencies that are testing at least, you know, different apps that could be used, which is good.

00;47;47;28 - 00;48;14;04
Speaker
That's a good sign. Maybe that means that there's more things to come, right. And with that, the administrative side has to keep up. And this is another big problem. And public safety agencies not so much on the private side, although private practitioners having some type of policy statement might be good to have that they can have it in writing in case that's needed for testimony just to show they're following their company's policy.

00;48;14;11 - 00;48;41;00
Speaker
But on the public safety side, it's really critical to update standard operating procedures, administrative orders, whatever they're called, and whatever agency it is to keep up with this digital world. I have run into public safety agencies that haven't updated their photography supplies since the 1970s. And when you look at their recipes, they're talking about the crime scene investigator.

00;48;41;00 - 00;49;14;26
Speaker
Back then, there were a lot of departments called ID techs, ID identification technicians. It would talk about the ID tech turning in their rolls of film to the evidence bureau at the end of their shift, and then the evidence bureau having to process those rolls of film within a certain amount of time and then putting the negatives in one locker and producing two sets of prints, one that goes to another locker and one that goes back to a detective, I mean, on and on about the film days they've never rewritten.

00;49;14;26 - 00;49;42;13
Speaker
There are so these and this is very important because if a current law enforcement officer or employee is testifying and the defense attorney comes out and says, show me in your recipe where you handle the digital images, images the way you just testify that you handled the they're not going to be able to find it because the recipe is going to talk about film and that's not going to look good on the stand.

00;49;42;13 - 00;50;04;24
Speaker
And it can be exploited very, very heavily exploited by a defense attorney who could bring it out in open court. You're following your recipes already because there are no recipes on this. It could you know; it might be minor in some instances. It might be based on another, but it's always a little bit embarrassing where the administrative side doesn't keep up with the worker B side.

00;50;04;26 - 00;50;27;05
Speaker
So, I can't emphasize that enough. And that was really one of the things that Larry Stringham taught me. He encountered that being an agency employee in an agency supervisor, he encountered that where I did where he said, you have to keep up the piece. Everybody needs to be on board as to how to handle all this technology and not leave it open ended.

00;50;27;08 - 00;51;11;28
Speaker
Yeah. And you brought up another point and you touched on it, but I'll expand on it. And that is that as people in policing these days are being asked to do a lot in some cases too much. And so, simplicity is key. And so if an app makes things simpler and streamlined and it's integrated into a system, you know that that that means that they don't have to get like massive training on something different or a whole huge system because, I mean, you know, some of my police colleagues, I mean, DNA biology, chemistry stuff, you know, the trajectory, the blood, things of it, it's like I tell them sometimes, how do you know, how

00;51;11;28 - 00;51;38;28
Speaker
do you keep track of all this crime scene technicians these days? And I've said this many times, I believe this is the most diversified profession on the planet right now because of what you just said, the crime scene investigator, a little more than a traffic crash investigator. But the crime scene, people have to either be experts at or at least be very familiar and fluent with all of the things you mentioned and a whole bunch more.

00;51;39;00 - 00;52;04;24
Speaker
There's no other profession out there that has so many diverse elements to it. You could be an expert on blood spatter or you also going to be an expert in ballistics. Are you also going to be an expert at a time distance analysis for a traffic homicide? Are you also going to be a great photographer? Can you make maps or are you a cartographer or are you a surveyor?

00;52;04;26 - 00;52;28;15
Speaker
So many things come into this, and it covers a long range of time, too. From the time a CSI goes out to the forest, like Larry was mentioning, to document evidence to the time it goes to trial could be two or three years down the road, maybe more. So, you have a lot of things to do, a lot of things to remember.

00;52;28;18 - 00;52;50;17
Speaker
The documentation effort has to be really tight so that you can remember all these details. I don't know of any other profession on the planet that has that type of burden placed upon the shoulders of the of the practitioners. Yeah, no, definitely. I've seen it day in and day out. So yeah, my kudos to them for, for holding it all together.

00;52;50;19 - 00;53;19;14
Speaker
What about you. I mean you; you're doing a ton of stuff now. What is next on the horizon for, for you. Well, the latest technological thing that I've been involved with for a few years is the cell phone mapping. And I think that's just going to be almost a full-time job here soon, because at least in Florida, where I'm at, the state attorney's offices are pulling cell phone records from every arrestee.

00;53;19;16 - 00;53;47;12
Speaker
And sometimes they use them and sometimes they don't. But if they are used as a basis of location as to where a suspect or defendant may have been prior to a crime or after a crime, they're using the cell phone information for that, The tower information. What I'm talking about are the records from the phone company. Those are called seed hours or call detail records, not to be confused with KDR Crash data recorders, which is also talked about in the industry.

00;53;47;14 - 00;54;08;28
Speaker
So, the records from the phone company show the towers were being used by all the calls and therefore places a person in a particular neighborhood. It doesn't identify the exact address they were on. It just shows they were in an area. This is different from what's downloaded from a phone, which is called a forensic extraction. So, I'm not talking about that type of task at all.

00;54;09;00 - 00;54;29;17
Speaker
What I get involved with mostly are these phone records to show where people were and the time where they when they were at a certain location in relation to a crime scene. So that's where I think the next big thing is it's continuing from where it's already started. That's excellent. Well, look, Robert, I want to say thank you so much.

00;54;29;19 - 00;54;48;15
Speaker
Thank you for being just so enthusiastic about technology and everything else and for all your hard work, because I saw you at Rex when you were working hard. So, you were sweating down there, running around, taking photos. I mean, you help out at conferences, you help out everywhere. And yeah, so thank you so much for your commitment to all these different places and everything else.

00;54;48;15 - 00;55;09;11
Speaker
It's appreciated it. Well, thank you. I appreciate the recognition. I absolutely appreciate meeting you finally in person after so many years of talking about photogrammetry and other things. And then just looking at the comments on the on the side of my screen here, so many of my friends and colleagues have watched this. I really appreciate their time today.

00;55;09;13 - 00;55;14;13
Speaker
It means a great deal to me. And thanks for having me. Thank you very much for

00;55;14;13 - 00;55;19;09
Speaker
I wish you all the best. Have a happy Thursday and we shall see you very soon. Take care, folks. Bye.