EnCE — EnCase Certified Examiner
The EnCase examiner credential, in two phases — a written exam at 80% then a 60-day, 18-question practical at 85% — and the tool certification most often named in litigation.
Type: CertificationWorking practitionersLaw enforcement & investigatorsLawyers & in-house counsel
Offered by OpenText (formerly Guidance Software)
The facts
- Cost
- $500 per exam attempt. OpenText states that its Learning Subscriptions do not include the exam fee, and the price of the required authorised courses was not published on the pages we could read — treat course cost as unconfirmed.Figure read 2026-09-12 from www.opentext.com/learning-services/learning-paths-encase-certifications
- Prerequisites
- Either 64 continuing professional education hours of authorised computer forensic instruction, or 12 months of work experience.
- Format
- Phase I written: 2 hours, true/false and multiple choice, administered through Certiverse, 80% minimum. Phase II practical: available for 60 days after passing Phase I, 18 questions, all must be answered, 85% minimum.
- Length
- Phase I is a two-hour sitting; Phase II runs inside a 60-day window after it.
- Renewal
- Valid three years. Renewal is $250 before expiry or $500 once lapsed, and requires 32 CPE credits, a related certification, or conference attendance.
- Accreditation
- No FSAB or ANAB accreditation statement was found on the OpenText pages we could read. Treat accreditation as unconfirmed.
- Who it suits
- An examiner in an EnCase lab, and particularly a testifying expert who wants the tool credential a court is most likely to recognise.
- Audience
- Working practitioners · Law enforcement & investigators · Lawyers & in-house counsel
Strengths
- The most widely recognised tool certification in litigation contexts — opposing counsel and judges have heard of it, which matters when you are the testifying expert.
- The 85% practical threshold is high, and the practical is a real graded examination rather than training labs.
- EnCase remains standard issue in many corporate and government labs, so the skill is directly billable.
- The 64-hour-or-12-months prerequisite accepts experience in place of paid training, which not every vendor credential does.
Limitations
- Vendor-specific: it certifies EnCase proficiency, not method-independent forensic competence, and an expert should expect to be asked about that distinction.
- The $500 fee excludes the training, and OpenText does not publish the course prices on the certification pages, so the total is unknowable from the site.
- No third-party accreditation could be confirmed.
- OpenText's own certification pages have moved and the older dedicated URL now redirects to a generic product page, which makes current terms harder to pin down than they should be.
- A three-year clock with a $500 penalty for letting it lapse.
Sources
Costs, prerequisites and exam formats in this field change often, and several providers price by region, cohort or employer agreement. Every figure on this page carries the date it was read and a link to the page it was read from. Confirm current terms with the provider before you spend anything.