Mobile Phone Forensics or Cell Site Analysis – What is required to provide a report?

There are numerous areas of mobile phone forensics, better known as digital forensics, including cell site analysis.

We are sometimes asked by the defence whether we need the phone to conduct cell site analysis. The answer to this is no, we work from the call data records as supplied by the network providers, i.e. Vodafone, EE etc.

If you require mobile phone forensics however then access to the handset would be required, whether the work is conducted in the lab or at the police station.
When we ask to be supplied with the call data records, normally as referred to within the Crown’s cell site analysis report, we are often sent the material relating to mobile phone forensics and the material which has been downloaded from the phone.

A cell site analysis expert should be supplied with the electronic copies of the mobile phone call data records as either Excel or CSV files. Essentially, the files that the police analyst, cell site expert or mobile phone forensics analyst used to compile the prosecutions report.

It is recommended that if you do not have electronic copies of this data then an application is made to the Crown Prosecution Service at the same time as an application for Legal Aid funding in order to save any delays.

It is also worth looking at the possibility of your cell site analysis expert being given authority to liaise direct with whoever has prepared the Crown report in order to obtain the data in the correct format. This is always easier when dealing with a cell site expert, data analyst or mobile phone forensics analyst as they are generally used to dealing with this type of data on a daily basis.
Service of cell site analysis material appears to be getting later and later so you are advised to deal with it as soon as it is received as delays can be numerous due to data issues before the work has even started.