Part 2: The Phase-oriented Advice and Review Structure (PARS) for digital forensic investigations

This work forms the second part of a two part series providing the necessary scaffolding for the digital forensic discipline to conduct effective peer review in their laboratories and units. The first part articulated the need for a structured approach to peer review in digital forensic investigations (Horsman and Sunde, 2020). Here in part two, the Phase-oriented Advice and Review Structure (PARS) for digital forensic investigations is offered. PARS is the first documented peer review methodology for the digital forensics field, a six staged approach designed to formally support organisations and their staff in their goal of facilitating effective peer review of DF work, from investigative tasks to forensic activities and forensic analysis processes (Pollitt et al., 2018). This article discusses how the PARS methodology can be implemented, and the available options and mechanisms available to ease the interpretation of this model into existing practices. Both the early ‘Advisor’ and later ‘Reviewer’ roles in PARS are discussed and their requirements and expectations are defined. Three template documents are provided and explained: The PARS Advisors template, the PARS Advisor Brief template and the PARS Peer Review Hierarchy template, for direct use by organisations seeking to adopt the PARS methodology.