ENFSI EWG AI Working Group
Definition
The European Network of Forensic Science Institutes Explosives Working Group's artificial intelligence working group, active from 2021. Produced a 2023 position paper on the use of ML in accredited fire and explosives laboratories, recommending decision-support use and explainability requirements.
- Parent body
- ENFSI Explosives Working Group
- Active since
- 2021
- Key output
- 2023 position paper on ML use in accredited labs
- Recommendation
- Decision-support role with explainability requirements
Common questions
Why does the group frame machine learning as decision-support rather than autonomous identification?+
Restricting ML output to a decision-support role keeps a qualified human examiner responsible for the final interpretation and courtroom testimony, which addresses accreditation and admissibility concerns about a black-box tool making the actual forensic determination.
What does the explainability requirement mean in practice for a lab adopting an ML tool?+
The laboratory needs to be able to show, at least in broad terms, why the model reached a given output for a given input, rather than treating the model purely as an opaque classifier, so that the reasoning can be explained if challenged in court.
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