×

City police getting tool to extract data

Cell phone information useful in investigations

The Marietta Police Department is getting a new piece of equipment in the coming weeks to pull text messages, phone calls, photos and other data from cell phones during investigations.

“We’re purchasing the Cellebrite UFED InField Kiosk which will allow us to burn copies of the phone’s data, text messages and stored photos to another device which can then go back to the case officer to sift through during investigation,” said Capt. Aaron Nedeff. “Cell phones have become more valuable than fingerprints nowadays …crooks are talking about their crimes, coordinating and messaging all through their mobile devices.”

Nedeff first approached Washington County Prosecutor Kevin Rings for authorization to spend $9,000 from the county’s law enforcement trust fund on the kiosk and then approached Marietta City Council for the additional $3,000 to train one of his officers as a certified operator, physical and logistical analyst.

The law enforcement trusts draw funds from monies seized during drug investigations and from seized property auctions.

“There’s also a yearly $2,500 fee for software updates to the kiosk but that cost will be shared by Belpre and the Municipal Court’s probation office too so that we can all use the kiosk,” said Nedeff. “We used to use the (Washington County Sheriff’s Office) to process and crack phones but they’ve gotten so overloaded that they told us we couldn’t use them anymore. Our only alternative was to send our phones to be processed by the state in London, but the backlog there is even worse because that’s where everyone in the state without their own kiosk sends their seized cell phones.”

Nedeff estimated that the department needs to process several hundred phones each year throughout investigations into burglaries, sex crimes, drug trafficking and overdose cases.

Belpre Police Chief Terry Williams said in the interim his department has utilized hardware owned by law enforcement across the river.

“Wood County is doing it for us now until MPD gets the kiosk and my investigator Det. Kerry Nichols does the tra ining,” said Williams. “You can learn so much from phones that $3,000 for training is worth it. That will also be paid for out of our law enforcement trust.”

Williams said the kiosk will be especially useful in tracking down drug dealers after an overdose.

“You have to move quickly to find the people who sold that addict the drugs,” he explained. “This way we can hook up the phone, download all of the data onto a thumb drive and bring it back to continue the investigation.”

Marietta Police Sgt. Ryan Huffman, who will be trained as the MPD analyst, said the data pulled from phones can also help link drug trafficking cases together.

“Location data, supplier information, customer information, how much they’re selling and other individuals selling if they’ve run out, the referrals they make, that can all be found on these phones,” he said. “And we’re hoping down the line to have the ability to pair our data with the sheriff’s office so we can find even more common phone numbers and links between cases.”

Nedeff pointed out that even deleted photos, messages and applications can be recovered through the kiosk.

“It cracks pass codes and even if a photo has been deleted, say in a sexting or child pornography case, the software could recover that,” he said. “And if it looks like people are talking through Facebook or Snapchat we contact that company first with a preservation letter so that they keep the photos and messages and then we get a warrant to obtain those records.”

In the case of discovered child nudity, including the sexualized photos of teenagers, Nedeff and Huffman said phones found to have contained that data will not be returned.

“Our policy will become any phone with any photo with underage nudity will be destroyed,” said Huffman.

“To put it simply, if it were my kid, I wouldn’t want any chance of those images being recovered and circulated and re-victimizing that child,” added Nedeff. “There’s no guarantee that the data of that photo was ever fully erased so I’m not going to chance it.”

Nedeff also said that once the system is installed and Huffman is trained on its use, parents concerned with the content of messages between their children may also ask that their children’s messages, photos and phone apps be accessed through the kiosk.

“This machine just makes it easier for us to pull that information as a layperson,” he said. “We can check kids’ phones too if parents think someone is victimizing their child or sending inappropriate messages or photos.”

At a glance

¯ The Marietta Police Department is purchasing a mobile phone data extraction system to decode various cell phone data such as call logs, contacts, calendar, text messages and other media files.

¯ The Cellebrite UFED InField Kiosk will be paid for through the Washington County Law Enforcement Trust and Marietta Law Enforcement Trust.

Source: Capt. Aaron Nedeff, Marietta Police Department.

NEWSLETTER

Today's breaking news and more in your inbox

I'm interested in (please check all that apply)
Are you a paying subscriber to the newspaper? *

Starting at $4.15/week.

Subscribe Today