In 2026, state forensic laboratories across the country are burning case files onto physical discs and mailing them to district attorneys.
Not some labs. Many labs. Possibly most.
A forensic analyst finishes work on a case. The laboratory report, the raw data, the supporting documentation, the discovery packet. All of it needs to go to the DA's office. Often to multiple DA offices, because a single laboratory may serve dozens or even hundreds of jurisdictions across a state.
So someone burns a disc. Labels it. Packages it. Mails it. Waits for it to arrive. Hopes it does not get lost. Repeats this for every case, for every jurisdiction, for every request.
The cost in staff time is substantial. The delay in case processing is real. But the most serious problem is the one nobody talks about: there is no audit trail. Once that disc leaves the laboratory, there is no record of who received it, when they accessed it, whether they copied it, or where those copies ended up. Sensitive case materials, potentially including evidence in violent crime cases, are circulating on untracked physical media.
Why this has not been solved already
The problem is not that the technology does not exist. SharePoint can be configured as a secure, auditable file sharing portal. Per-case access with per-user permissions and time-limited availability is not a novel technical challenge.
The problem is that forensic laboratories operate under constraints that most IT providers have never encountered. Every file share is potentially an evidentiary file share. Access logs are not a nice-to-have; they are a chain-of-custody requirement. Document integrity must be provable. Defense counsel will scrutinize the IT infrastructure that stored and transmitted evidence, looking for any gap they can use to challenge admissibility.
Most IT providers do not understand this. They configure a generic file sharing platform with generic settings, and the laboratory's quality assurance manager rejects it because it does not meet accreditation requirements or evidentiary standards.
What a secure evidence sharing portal looks like
The portal CTP configures for forensic laboratories is built on SharePoint but configured for the specific requirements of evidence handling.
Access is granted per-case, per-user. A DA assigned to case number 2024-1847 can access the files for that case and nothing else. Their access is time-limited and can be revoked instantly.
Every file download is logged. The laboratory can demonstrate exactly who accessed which files, when, from what device, and what they did with them. This audit trail is maintained with the same rigor as any other chain-of-custody record.
Document versioning preserves the complete history of every file. If a document is updated, the previous version is retained. No file can be silently altered.
Sensitivity labels identify case-related materials and enforce handling policies automatically. Documents cannot be forwarded, printed, or copied outside the controlled environment unless the policy explicitly allows it.
The impact
A laboratory that replaces disc-mailing with a secure portal eliminates days or weeks of delay in case processing. DA offices access case files the same day they are ready, not the day the mail arrives. Staff time previously spent on disc production is redirected to casework. And every file transfer is auditable, which strengthens the chain of custody rather than weakening it.
The North Carolina State Crime Lab demonstrated that paperless workflows are achievable in a forensic environment. The technology and the methodology exist. What has been missing is an IT partner who understands the evidentiary requirements well enough to implement it properly.
The accreditation angle
ISO/IEC 17025, the standard that governs forensic laboratory accreditation, requires documented procedures for the management of electronic records, including evidence of controlled access, traceable user activity, and systematic change management. Assessment teams now evaluate IT infrastructure as part of their review.
A disc-mailing process creates a documentation gap. Once the disc leaves the laboratory, the chain of custody for that physical media depends on postal tracking and the receiving party's handling procedures. If a defense attorney asks the laboratory to prove that the DA's office received an unaltered copy of the case file, the laboratory's ability to answer depends on whether the mail was tracked and whether the DA's office documented receipt. Compare that to a digital portal where every download is logged with a timestamp, user identity, and file hash.
Laboratories preparing for accreditation assessment should consider that the IT infrastructure supporting evidence sharing is no longer a peripheral concern. It is part of the assessment scope. And a portal with comprehensive audit trails is a stronger accreditation artifact than a log of mailed discs.
What about the investigators?
The sharing problem extends beyond the laboratory-to-DA workflow. Investigators in the field need access to laboratory results. Detectives working multi-jurisdictional cases need to share information across agency boundaries. One of the investigators we have worked with described tracking a suspect's crimes across small towns in several states by manually piecing together bank transactions and records. There was no central resource that each detective could access to share data.
The tools to build that shared resource exist today. Secure cloud infrastructure, role-based access controls, audit trails that satisfy evidentiary requirements, and network connectivity that reaches across jurisdictions. The challenge is not technology. It is finding a partner with the right combination of technical depth and forensic domain knowledge.
What a connected forensic infrastructure could look like
Imagine a state crime laboratory with secure, high-bandwidth connectivity to every DA's office and law enforcement agency in its jurisdiction. Case files are shared instantly through auditable portals. Investigators in the field can query laboratory results in real time. Cross-jurisdictional cases share information through secure, role-based channels where every access is logged and every document is versioned.
Add AI-driven analysis for pattern recognition across cases, running in a secure environment that respects chain-of-custody boundaries. An analyst working a fraud case could query anonymized transaction patterns across multiple jurisdictions, identifying connections that would take weeks to find manually.
Add Nutanix hyperconverged infrastructure for the local evidence stores, instrument data, and LIMS environments that must stay on-premises. Lumen NaaS for the connectivity backbone. An independent identity service for authentication across agencies. Cross-platform security monitoring that covers the entire ecosystem.
This is not science fiction. Every component exists today. The challenge is assembling them in a way that meets the specific evidentiary, accreditation, and security requirements of the forensic science community. That requires an IT partner who understands both the technology and the domain.
We think this is one of the most interesting and underserved opportunities in government technology. And we think the page you are reading (on a site devoted to IT solutions for forensic laboratories) is the beginning of the conversation.
CTP has worked with the Essex County District Attorney's Office and has collaborated with law enforcement agencies for over 20 years. We understand that in a forensic environment, every IT configuration is a link in the chain of custody. That understanding is what makes this kind of implementation possible.