"Body recognition" compares with fingerprint ID
"Body recognition" compares with fingerprint ID
November 27, 2014
(Medical Xpress)—University of Adelaide forensic anatomy
researchers are making advances in the use of "body recognition" for
criminal and missing persons cases, to help with identification when a face is
not clearly shown.
PhD student Teghan Lucas is studying a range of human
anatomical features and body measurements that can help to identify a person,
such as from closed circuit television (CCTV) security videos, no matter what
clothing the person may be wearing.
"There's been a lot of work conducted over the years
on facial recognition. This makes sense – humans have evolved to recognise
faces, which is part of our survival mechanism, and the face contains some very
distinctive features. But what happens if the face is not shown, or if there is
an unusual facial resemblance between two people? What happens if
identification of the face alone just isn't enough?" Ms Lucas says.
"Measurements of the body, as well as the face, were
used for forensic identification as early as the 19th century. It was believed
that no two individuals had the exact same measurements. However, this was
overtaken by fingerprint analysis because it was considered more reliable in
court proceedings, and the probability of finding matching individuals could be
easily calculated."
However, Ms Lucas says body recognition has the potential
to be more widely used in identification cases. "Despite what television
and the movies would have people believe, there is often a lack of good quality
video evidence. Criminal cases usually involve a deliberate attempt to cover
the face, or fine details can't be seen," she says.
Part of Ms Lucas's research has involved using a database
of anatomical measurements of almost 4000 US armed services personnel. "We
compared eight facial and eight body measurements to investigate whether or not
there is enough information on the body to use for identification. Results
consistently show that compared with the face, less body measurements are
needed before eliminating duplicates and achieving a single ID match. The
larger the range of each of the measurements, the less chance there is of
finding a duplicate.
"With a combination of eight body measurements it is
possible to reduce the probability of finding a duplicate to the order of one
in a quintillion. These results are comparable with fingerprint analysis,"
she says.
"In our experience, the body is more variable than
the face and should be used in identification more often. Another advantage to
using the body is that larger dimensions are easier to locate on images and not
affected by facial expressions."
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