Investigator-first digital-evidence guidance
IF Digital helps capable investigators understand digital records well enough to make proportionate, defensible decisions, and to practise those decisions on realistic fictional cases.
Investigators who are not digital specialists
IF Digital is written for investigators, analysts and supervisors who are good at investigation but are not digital specialists. That includes police and law-enforcement staff, fraud and financial-crime teams in banks and fintech, and teams at communications and cloud providers who work alongside investigators.
It is not a networking course, a digital-forensics qualification, a legal manual or a general technology encyclopaedia. It does not replace authorised investigative procedures, specialist advice or your organisation's policies.
Three ways to use it
Investigation help
Start with a record or a question, such as an IP address or a suspicious email, and find the next useful step.
Get help with an investigation →Learn and practise
Work through fictional investigations and simulated systems, make decisions and see the reasoning behind the answers.
Explore learning and activities →Explore topics
A growing reference library of short, question-led pages on the digital evidence investigators meet.
Browse all topics →Plain language, careful about what evidence shows
Pages answer one question at a time. They give the plain answer first, explain why it matters to an investigator, and add only as much technical detail as is needed to understand a record, its limits and the next useful question.
Each page is clear about what a record establishes and what remains open. Where evidence supports a line of enquiry, the page says so, rather than burying it in caveats.
Written from investigative practice
IF Digital is written by a former detective with sixteen years in UK policing, including CID, crisis negotiation and training management. The guidance is shaped by how enquiries run in practice: records arrive partial, providers take time to respond and accounts conflict. It is written to help in those situations, not only to describe how systems work.
Considering IF Digital for your organisation?
Read how material is governed and how organisational licences work.
