The journey of the open digital forensic platform Hansken – from sudden need to global scaling

Hansken is an open digital forensic platform that is owned and maintained by the Dutch government – and the winner of the digital transformation category of the European Public Sector Awards 2023. Hansken emerged from a sudden practical need. In a major child pornography case in the Netherlands in 2010, the police urgently required a method to investigate the data. The subsequent evolution of Hansken resulted in a broad and scalable platform with technologies handling large amounts of data.

With Hansken, all parties – public prosecutors, judges and lawyers – can use the same source and see the same context in the digital data, which contributes to a fair trial. 

Currently, Hansken is in use in 13 countries, and there is a noticeable increase in its usage. This tangible collaboration is a significant innovative element of the platform. It involves parties working together, developing knowledge and methods in the field of digital forensics. The open nature of Hansken, working with APIs (application programming interfaces), enables all parties to apply and share their own methods within the community.