BKA (Bundeskriminalamt)
Definition
German Federal Criminal Police Office; custodian of EUCAP and primary German forensic laboratory for automotive paint comparison.
- Full name
- German Federal Criminal Police Office
- Database custodian
- EUCAP automotive paint database
- Specialty shown here
- Automotive paint comparison casework
- Field
- Forensic trace evidence, paint analysis
Common questions
What is EUCAP and why does the BKA maintain it?+
EUCAP is a European reference collection of automotive paint formulations used to identify the make, model, and production period of a vehicle from a paint chip or smear recovered at a scene, and the BKA holds custodianship as part of its role as a central German forensic laboratory.
Why is paint database matching useful in hit-and-run or vehicle-related investigations?+
A paint layer sequence and formulation can narrow a vehicle to a specific manufacturer, model range, and sometimes production year, which helps investigators shortlist candidate vehicles long before any suspect vehicle is physically recovered.
Related terms
- BNS 2023 § 106
- Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita 2023 provision criminalising causing death by negligence; the primary charging provision for fatal hit-and-run cases in India, with enhanced...
- Direct Comparison
- Side-by-side physical and spectroscopic comparison of the questioned chip with a sample from the suspect vehicle; the mandatory final stage in any...
- ENFSI EPG
- Expert Working Group on Paint (European Network of Forensic Science Institutes); produced the European paint-examination protocol and promoted EUCAP development.
- ENFSI FIRM
- Forensic Intelligence and Reporting Model; verbal LR scale from 'inconclusive' through 'limited', 'moderate', 'strong', and 'very strong' support used in European trace-evidence...
- EUCAP
- European Collection of Automotive Paints, maintained at the Bundeskriminalamt (BKA) in Wiesbaden; the European counterpart to PDQ for automotive hit-and-run paint comparison.
- FSR Codes of Practice
- The Forensic Science Regulator's Codes of Practice and Conduct, made statutory by the Forensic Science Regulator Act 2021, setting mandatory quality standards...
- Likelihood Ratio (LR)
- The ratio of two conditional probabilities: the probability of the observed evidence given the prosecution's hypothesis (same source), divided by the probability...
- PDQ (Paint Data Query)
- RCMP-maintained international automotive paint database. Stores binder, pigment and layer data for vehicle original-equipment finishes from major manufacturers. Used to narrow a...
- Secondary Transfer
- The movement of a glass fragment from a primary surface (which contacted the broken glass) to a secondary surface (which contacted the...
- Spectral Cross-Correlation
- A mathematical similarity measure comparing two FTIR spectra; PDQ uses cross-correlation scores to rank candidate matches; a score above 0.90 is treated...
- SWGMAT
- Scientific Working Group for Materials Analysis, a US forensic science standards body (now succeeded by the OSAC Explosives Subcommittee). Published the Forensic...