Dundee-led project unveils new tools to aid justice across Europe

Experts from the Clarus Project, led by experts from Dundee’s Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Leverhulme Research Centre for Forensic Science, and Faculty of Science, Engineering and Business, have produced a Clarity Checker Tool, designed to help digital forensic practitioners identify, understand and reduce systemic bias in investigative processes. 

Digital forensic evidence now underpins almost every type of criminal investigation, from cybercrime and fraud to homicide and organised crime. The Clarus Project – funded by Horizon-Europe – drew on research conducted across Scotland, Finland, Greece, Czechia and Portugal to highlight how everyday communication practices can undermine evidence.

The AI-assisted Clarity Checker software represents a major step towards improving the fairness, transparency, and reliability of digital forensic communication across Europe, ensuring consistency in cross-border investigations.

The programme can analyse written communication reports and indicate factors that may unintentionally influence how digital evidence is interpreted. It focuses on identifying where bias and misinterpretation can emerge in language, offering support to make these risks visible and manageable. 

A key function of the software is its role as a communication “self‑checker,” which reviews written text for clarity, neutrality, and potential bias. Doing so ensures that descriptions of digital evidence remain free from language that could lead to misunderstandings or misinterpretation, regardless of where the information is first produced.

To ensure further alignment throughout the criminal justice system, Clarus Project researchers have also published a new online lexicon for professionals working in the European digital forensics sector.

Developed collaboratively with practitioners, the resource has been created to address longstanding challenges in digital investigations, where inconsistent terminology and ambiguous language can lead to misinterpretation of evidence, hinder cooperation between agencies, and introduce unintentional bias into investigative processes.

Professor Megan O’Neill, Director of Research for the Clarus Project at Dundee, said, “Technology is moving at an incredible rate and it is crucial that the criminal justice system keeps pace with this. 

“These two resources have been developed to ensure that the evidence that underpins many criminal investigations is shared and communicated between criminal justice agents clearly and effectively and is interpreted consistently, regardless of who is using it and where it originates. 

“By working across the continent and with experts in their field, these new resources will help to define how digital forensic concepts are described across police forces, forensic laboratories, and judicial systems for years to come.”