Spatially Enabling the BC Coroner Service (Clarence Lai)

The British Columbia Coroners Service (BCCS) and GeoBC have brought together their respective expertise to develop an Identification GIS, likely the first of its kind in North America. The BC Coroners Service is responsible for the identification of all human remains in British Columbia. To that end, the Identification and Disaster Response Unit (IDRU), operating out of the Office of the Chief Coroner, has established an identification model that incorporates numerous relational databases. GeoBC focuses on spatial and attribute data associated applications to assist various clients and businesses optimize the data potential. Due to the expertise of GeoBC analysts, geography is fast becoming as important as any other forensic discipline in determining possible associations between missing persons and human remains. The intent of this presentation is to explain how GIS has been incorporated into the BCCS on a daily basis, how cases are handled differently now compared to the past, and setting up an ideal model to compare complex cases.