The point about the confusion surrounding police forces’ contracting of digital forensic analysis is not to cast aspersions on the competence of the contractors.

Nor is it even a question of there being a genuine lack of security.

The point is that it takes only the suggestion that irregular practices may be possible to derail a trial. And to proceed on any other basis is simple negligence.

The situation unearthed by Computing emphasises, yet again, the police service tendency, when faced with anything involving computers, to either ignore it completely or behave as if none of the usual rules applies.

Police forces have been contracting out forensic analysis for as long as such work has existed. Why the security of digital evidence should not fall under the same procedures as any other kind of evidence is a question with no logical answer.

Apologists for the inconsistencies may suggest that the criminal role of computers is so recent, and the digital forensics industry so young, that the mature procedures applied to traditional forensics have not yet had time to be established.

But, from the police perspective, evidence is evidence and digital forensics are no different from the more traditional kind.

Sadly, the mistaken distinction comes as little surprise.

E-crime as a whole is still often treated as a baffling novelty, even though it is growing exponentially and already costs its victims an estimated £3bn a year.

In both cases, local forces lay at least part of the blame on restricted budgets. There is no extra funding for e-crime units and not enough resources for checking the security of digital forensics contractors, apparently.

But lack of money is a weak excuse.

The private sector has learned two crucial lessons in the past decade: technology is the medium not the message, and it is no longer an optional extra.

The police service and the Home Office budget-setters need to catch up.