Investigation of Indecent Images of Children cases: Challenges and suggestions collected from the trenches

Previous studies examining the investigative challenges and needs of Digital Forensic (DF) practitioners have typically taken a sector-wide focus. This paper presents the results of a survey which collected text-rich comments about the challenges experienced and related suggestions for improvement in the investigation of Indecent Images of Children (IIOC) cases. The comments were provided by 153 international DF practitioners (28.1% survey response rate) and were processed using Thematic Analysis. This resulted in the identification of 4 IIOC-specific challenge themes, and 6 DF-generic challenges which directly affect IIOC. The paper discusses these identified challenges from a practitioner perspective, and outlines their suggestions for addressing them.