Peter Sommer

Most of my income comes from acting as an expert witness in cases involving complex digital evidence, but I also consult on broader cyber security issues and carry out some investigations which do not end in litigation. I am also a part-time academic and public policy analyst specialising in cyber security and digital evidence. Expert witnesses have an over-riding duty to the court, not to any feepayer - I am instructed by prosecution and defence interests in criminal cases and by both claimant and defendant in civil cases. Instructions have include the obvious categories of cybercrime but also top-level narcotics trafficking, fraud, harasment, defamation, sexual offences, immigration issues and Official Secrets. Visiting Professor of Digital Forensics and Birmingahm City University, Visiting Professor at de Montfort University, formerly Visiting Reader at Open University, formerly Visiting Professor at London School of Economics. Www.pmsommer.com Full CV at http://www.pmsommer.com/PMSCV042015_leg.pdf Digital evidence case-work, criminal and civil back to 1985. Author: Digital Evidence Handbook, 2017, available as a Amazon/Kindle The IAAC Director’s and Corporate Advisor’s Guide to Digital Investigations and Evidence can be downloaded from: http://www.iaac.org.uk/Portals/0/DigitalInvestigationsGuide.pdf The OECD Study Reducing Systemic Cyber Risk can be downloaded from: http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/3/42/46894657.pdf I had an earlier career in book publishing. At Granada I first ran their egg-head paperback imprint, Paladin but later was Deputy Editorial Director, paperbacks for the whole group. I then moved into the publishing of electronic data, initially via BT's pioneering Prestel service, a pre-Internet public access system. Prestel was ahead of its time. From there I moved into City-related risk consultancy, largely for the insurance market and with a strong emphasis on financial institutions and very large businesses. After a while the expert witness work was beginning to take over. Specialties: Complex digital evidence; cybercrime; "hacking", forensic science policy; cybersecurity; emergency response issues; technologies of intelligence analysis; national cybersecurity policy; law and cyber For the last few years I have been instructed in many cases involving the EncroChat secure phone system as used by serious organised criminals, At the moment I am at full capacity for this type of work.