Online investigation resilience

***This tender requirement was abandoned prior to a Contract award decision, due to a reconsideration regarding the scope of the specification that would materially change the current requirement***

The Office for Product Safety and Standards have built our online investigation capacity to deliver enforcement online. The staff have undergone training and are using online tools to capture unsafe products on websites.

The Office have not, as yet, undertaken investigations that have required the examination of electronic devices containing data, however this is likely to change over the next 3 years therefore the focus of this contract is to provide support in this area.

We would expect practitioners to be trained and competent in recovering and reproducing seized digital evidence, so that it can be presented as evidence in Court. Practitioners should follow the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) Good Practice Guide on how to identify, preserve and recover electronic evidence (2012).

Requirement

The contractor will deliver the key important requirements: 1) Provide technical examination of seized digital evidence in line with good practice, with production of an appropriate report and witness statement to criminal court standard. 2) Provide training to a minimum of 30 OPSS investigators on digital investigation principles and techniques, as required. 3) Answer a minimum of 10 enquiries per week of phone / email enquiries from Office for Product Safety and Standards (OPSS) investigators during office hours (Monday - Friday, 9-5pm, excluding bank holidays) on relevant topics (online investigations, website capture, securing digital evidence). The contractor is required to: • Keep a record of requests received and answered from OPSS investigators • Prepare written criminal witness statements and present evidence in Court as required. • Deliver update training sessions covering the range of elements to online digital investigations. • Produce a 6 monthly progress report outlining the activity completed under the contract to date.

Additional information: This tender is available at our e-procurement portal, Delta. The access code is C3C4V48DJ8.