The Need for Standards Unification in Forensic Laboratory Practices: Protocol for Setting Up the Arab Forensic Laboratories Accreditation Center

Abstract

Background  Despite the recent trend toward developing and applying quality control measures in the forensic science disciplines, there is a heightened interest to efforts to ameliorate disparate quality among laboratories through the enforcement of standards and best practices. Objective  This protocol aims to set up the Arab Forensic Laboratories Accreditation Center (AFLAC) to act as a key driving legal force for accreditation of the different forensic laboratories in the Arab region. Methods  Upon its development, the Forensic Laboratory-Arabian Gate (FLAG) platform will serve as a preliminary stage for the AFLAC, and 2 preparatory steps will be achieved through the FLAG platform: the first one is a scoping study to analyze the international guidelines regarding the forensic laboratory practices in different specialties, and the second one is mapping surveys to explore how the international and national guidelines are translated into practice in Arab forensic laboratories. Development of the Arab forensic laboratories accreditation center will be initiated by building the AFLAC quality management system, which comprises formation of the forensic science committees to achieve the standards required for accreditation in each discipline. This will be followed by the attainment of regional accreditation recognition of the Arab Accreditation Cooperation (ARAC) and the International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation. This recognition necessitates achieving International Organization for Standardization/International Electrotechnical Commission 17011 standard requirements prior to official application to the ARAC. Results  The first phase of our work (the FLAG platform) began in February 2022 and is expected to end in December 2022. The FLAG platform was proposed to the Arab Society of Forensic Sciences and Forensic Medicine in March 2022, and we received approval to host this web development project. Subsequent phases are anticipated to begin in January 2023 and are expected to end in 2025. Conclusions  This work describes our approach to provide a valuable tool for forensic laboratory accreditation services to promote the best practice and its consistency in the field of forensic sciences in the Arab region. International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID) PRR1-10.2196/36778