AI likely to be used to analyze exploding digital evidence

When prosecutors reinvestigated Choi Hui-pal, a pyramid scheme criminal, last year, they did not dare to probe into an enormous amount of digital evidence accumulated since 2008 when police started investigation and some 20 million pieces of financial information. In addition, the server used for managing revenues was irretrievable for seven years as the main culprits overwrote large files as many as 30 times.

What made impossible possible was a “scientific investigation.” With the support from the digital investigation team of the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office, the investigation team identified that the scheme was 5.7 trillion won (4.84 billion U.S. dollars), which was previously known for 2.8 trillion won (2.37 billion dollars), and clawed back 71 billion won (60.1 million dollars) of accomplices by analyzing their financial and communications records.

Prosecutors are increasing their capacity in scientific investigations in response to drastically increasing digital evidence and sophisticated methods of destroying evidence. The scientific investigation department of the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office hosted a “digital forensic symposium” with the mathematics information science department of Seoul National University at the university to discuss the potential usage of artificial intelligence (AI) in investigations on Friday.

“If data increases over 1,000 times in a decade, it will be impossible for human beings to collect and classify data. To increase the accuracy of data collection for investigation, we’re considering leveraging artificial intelligence,” said Kim Seong-ho, head of the supercomputing R&D center of the Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information. “If the ‘deep view’ technology, which serves as a visual intelligence and makes a forecast by analyzing massive video data, is combined with high definition surveillance cameras, the dream of catching the crime scene and the criminal from a video clip will come true.”

신동진기자 shine@donga.com