It's part of the business we do to preserve continuity. One of the most important things in a forensic environment is to ensure that the evidence that comes into the laboratory is the evidence that is showing up in the courtroom. Over our whole history, that's something we have very much taken pride in.
In recent years we have also had access to laboratory information systems that allow you to track evidence within the lab as well. We start with the process from the crime scene. We do training of police officers so that they know how to protect and how to deal with evidence. We have specialists in the police department, usually in identification services, who are the evidence collectors. When the items come into the lab, they're given unique identifiers within the lab. Currently we use bar-coding in our lab to track evidence as it goes through the laboratory. It's also tracked within our laboratory information systems.
Then there's the process to send it back, using proper packaging and seal numbers to identify any items that might be difficult to identify in some other way. For example, blood tubes all look the same, so you have to put a unique seal on each. We have processes to make sure that we can ship it back and ensure that the officer receives it unopened. We have systems to be able to demonstrate that the package has not been opened or interfered with, using, for example, frangible seals.
We have quite a sophisticated process in place to track that and to track the movement of items within the laboratory.