Amped Has a Chat With Victor Bystrom from the Swedish National Police

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Despite being a fairly small country, Sweden has an active and skilled forensic community, which highly values the importance of proper processes, tools and training. I’ve met Victor Bystrom, from the Swedish National Police, a few times and have always enjoyed our interesting conversations, not only during his several visits to our headquarters in Trieste, Italy, but also at the LEVA conference in the US. He has a long experience in video investigations and is an Amped FIVE and Amped Authenticate expert user.

Martino Jerian, Amped Software CEO and Founder
victor bystrom from the swedish national police

Victor, tell us a bit about yourself. What is your background and your current role at the Swedish National Police?

I started working for the police almost 14 years ago. Back then as an analyst in the intelligence service. And already at that time, I started working with the retrieval of surveillance videos. In the last 5 years, however, I have dug deeper into what is the forensic part of video analysis within the Swedish National Police.

What is the most rewarding part of your job?

The best thing about what I do now is that I can pretty quickly see results in what you do and hopefully lead an investigation forward.

What was it that first sparked your interest in the field of image and video forensics?

After working for a couple of years with simpler video handling, it felt like a natural step to take to get into the more complex world that is video forensics.

How do you think the world of image and video forensics will change over the next few years?

I think a lot of work will be able to be automated, which will lead to a simplified work process, for a certain type of simpler jobs.

What would you say are the most valuable features in Amped FIVE for your investigations?  

I would say that it is easy to use and understand. The use of bookmarks and the fact that you can rename all chains give you a good workflow and make it easy when it comes to writing your report.

We are often told that case backlog is an issue for many video labs, what do you think could be done to assist with this problem?

For us, it is to train more people who can handle the slightly simpler jobs so we can concentrate on the more complicated ones.

You’re a frequent Amped Software trainee, you’ve attended the Amped FIVE course several times and have also taken the Amped FIVE Additions course, as well as the Amped Authenticate course. Why is continuous learning so important to you?

For me, it is important to be up to date with the latest when it comes to video forensics. Keep track of what is new but also the exchange of knowledge with others who take the courses and get an insight into how they work. You can always learn something from those who have worked in the same field for a long time.

Finally, what do you do to relax in your free time?

In my free time, I try to travel as much as I can and see and experience new places and cultures. However, it’s a little difficult now with the pandemic. So I have to content myself with fixing my motorcycle and riding around in Sweden.

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