George Seba, Computing Course Leader at Bridgwater and Taunton College’s Taunton Centre was invited to deliver the research he undertook into Android Wear geo-location forensics at the fifth International Conference on Cybercrime, Security and Digital Forensics.

The Conference was hosted by the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom as part of a symposium on Forensics in Defence and Security. Its aim was to present state-of-the-art developments in Cyberforensics, Counter Terrorism and Open-Source Intelligence. The high profile event attracted delegates from military and civil law enforcement, intelligence professionals from forensic service providers and forensic scientists, particularly those with responsibilities in Cybersecurity, Explosive, Fire and other counter-terrorism related areas.

George presented his findings at the Conference. He has developed a method of recovering, decoding and visualising geo-location forensic artefacts found on Android Wear smartwatches when used with the Google Fit app. The applications of his research are extremely important in digital forensics and law enforcement as it can help an investigator to recreate not only an accurate route and timeline of a suspect’s movements, but also determine the speed, direction of travel and even infer the method of transport.

I have also developed a script that parses the Google Fit database, decodes the GPS data and converts it into a KML file that could be further opened in Google Earth showing the exact route taken by the suspect. The script also resolves the last recorded GPS coordinates to a UK postal address, which is very useful to a forensic investigator.

George’s research will be published next year in the Advances in Forensic Science for Security and Defence journal which will be available on Springer. He has also been invited to be a Guest Lecturer next year at Cranfield University’s Centre for Forensic Science where he will discuss his research with students studying Masters in Forensic Computing.

If you would like to find out more about studying Computing at Bridgwater and Taunton College contact their Information and Guidance team on 01278 441234.