Criminalistic zoom levels: Unravelling the hierarchy of forensic traces.

In this paper, we introduce criminalistic zoom levels that describe hierarchical relations between different types of forensic traces. Criminalistic zoom levels are recognised for digital as well as physical forensic traces and may enhance synergy by showing the relation of traces studied by various examiners. We provide a brief etymological introduction to the term trace and a number of definitions found in the literature. We then highlight a number of aspects that are considered relevant in the description of traces. Next, following two examples of forensic investigations in both the digital and physical realm, we explain how they can be approached similarly by using criminalistic zoom levels. We show how the concept of such zoom levels is inspired by the way digital forensic investigators reason about metadata. To complete the paper, we explain the relation to the hierarchy of propositions, we summarise the implications we see from using the notion of criminalistic zoom levels.