Professionalism in digital forensics

This article considers issues regarding professionalism in digital forensics in order to allow the discipline to develop and to ensure the credibility of the discipline from the different perspectives of practitioners, the criminal justice system and the public. There is a need to examine and develop professionalism in digital forensics in order to promote the discipline and maintain the credibility of the discipline. The paper explores the characteristics of a profession using Denning's criteria, 2 and applies these to digital forensics; attempts to determine the position of the discipline in relation to other forensic science areas and in relation to computer science, and seeks to identify professional issues and challenges for digital forensics and links these challenges to legal and ethical considerations. Consideration is also given to issues such as post-traumatic stress disorder.