Western Hemisphere: ICITAP Delivers Unprecedented Webinar on Internal Audits

On July 15, ICITAP’s Central America mission facilitated a webinar for forensic laboratories in Latin America titled “Internal Audits in the Time of COVID-19: Experiences from Costa Rica and Mexico.” Specifically, the webinar focused on strategies for conducting internal audits, as required by the standards issued by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), while practicing social distancing.  Speakers from Costa Rica’s Judicial Investigation Department (OIJ), Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office (FGR) and ICITAP’s mission in Mexico discussed strategies for meeting the ISO requirements through the use of virtual monitoring of work practices, sharing documents electronically and virtual meetings. The webinar drew an unprecedentedly large audience of over 800 people from across ICITAP missions in Mexico, Colombia, and Central America.  Also joining the webinar were forensic professionals from Spain, Argentina and Portugal.  These representatives joined as members of the Academia Iberoamericana de Criminalística y Estudios Forenses (IACEF), which is composed of 15 nations of the Western Hemisphere and Spain and Portugal.  As a result of the webinar, a request was made by Honduras Dirección de Investigación Policial (DPI) and Medicina Legal de Honduras to utilize the lists for audits, sampling documentations, and others presented by the Manager of Quality Assurance Section of the Costa Rican National Department of Forensic Sciences, which was granted by the Director General of the lab.