The term “biometrics” conjures a host of futuristic images. To be certain, the science of identifying individuals based on their unique biological characteristics is a burgeoning field, and one that has long lent itself to flights of spy-movie fancy.

Still, while the field is becoming more intricate and sophisticated every year, a great deal of biometrics—particularly in the law enforcement community—remains fundamentally unchanged from the early 1890s when Scottish physician Henry Faulds developed a fingerprint classification system.¹

However, that does not mean that the tools available to today’s police professionals have also remained unchanged. From the basic fingerprinting brush to cutting-edge facial recognition software, companies around the world are working to make biometrics more effective for public safety.

The Original Biometrics

Law enforcement professionals often use biometrics in investigations. And the tried-and-true biometric marker—the fingerprint—is still the most common one collected and used.

But, just because the fingerprint remains the standard, it does not mean that the methods used to collect them have also stayed static. Collecting fingerprints can be intricate science. Latent fingerprints can still be detected with time-honored tools such as powder and brushes, but new technologies are also entering the field.

One of the new areas in fingerprinting is so-called DNA-free fingerprinting. DNA analysis has become so sophisticated that the small traces of DNA left behind in the skin cells of a fingerprint can be sufficient for an accurate sample. A leader in this area is Sirchie, a forensic solutions provider headquartered in North Carolina. Sirchie’s DNA Free Fingerprint Lifting Kit, available for as little as $19.95, not only captures fingerprints, but also prevents cross-contamination that might compromise the integrity of a potential DNA sample associated with the print.

Sirchie also offers a range of training options for fingerprinting. Fingerprint comparison, latent print ridgeology, palm print comparison, and mastering the International Association for Identification’s Latent Print Exam are all offered for $600 per class.

Faces in the Crowd

Recognizing faces is a relatively new element of biometrics, but several vendors are making up for lost time, offering facial recognition technology for identification and access control.

Cognitec Systems, a biometrics hardware and software company based in Dresden, Germany, has developed face recognition technology that can assist law enforcement agencies in identifying suspects or finding missing persons. Cognitec’s FaceVACS-DBScan software, available on mobile devices as well as computers, allows users to take photographs and video stills and compare them against images in a mugshot repository or another image database of the user’s choosing.

Elke Oberg, marketing manager for Cognitec, emphasized that the software is not a perfect substitute for a human decision, but can nevertheless be a useful tool for investigators. “It can help support investigations,” Oberg said. “It is not something you would normally use in a court of law, but if you have an image from a database or a video or a picture in the field, you can compare that image to those in another database. It’s becoming a more and more reliable tool to find people… You can look for specific details in the face, such as tattoos or moles.”²

In cases when a photo is not fully frontal or otherwise incomplete, the FaceVACS-DBScan software can automatically estimate and fill in remaining facial characteristics to form a complete composite image. “A frontal still photo is ideal, but the software can take a side image and fill in the face,” Oberg said.³

Total Recall is a New York–based security tech firm specializing in surveillance solutions. Its Facial Video Recognition (FVR) software is an automated identification program that can help identify specific faces in still photos or video streams. Other available features include the ability to generate demographic information, track the movement of specific people in time and space, detect the presence of frequent visitors, and locate crowds.

Finding the right face in the crowd, however, can be more than a literal pursuit. Though social media is not a biometric marker, the unique public signatures created within this chatter are increasingly part of many personal footprints.

At LifeRaft, a technology firm based in Nova Scotia, developers have created a solution that allows law enforcement to create a geographic “fence” around a given location and search through posts on all major social media that were created in that space and during a given timeframe to find trends; keywords; and, ultimately, persons of interest.

“Quickly find actionable information among the billions of posts each day,” said Darren MacLeod, LifeRaft’s co-founder and chief marketing officer. “We look at the themes of a conversation. If you have a subject you want to investigate, we can tell the geographic reach of an individual. It creates a visualization. You can analyze every one of the known associates and all geographic meta-data.”⁴

Improvements in productivity can be large, MacLeod said, given that LifeRaft “can do in one hour what it might take an officer 100 hours.” For example, in an exercise following the Boston Marathon bombing, LifeRaft found 3,300 witnesses to the bombing after 20 minutes of social media analysis of that area and time. “That would take a million officers a million years to do,” MacLeod said.⁵

According to MacLeod, LifeRaft is also one of the few services of its kind on the market that can recognize and flag emojis. For example, an emoji of a pistol pointed at a cartoon pig could be flagged as a threat against police.

The Ultimate Biomarker

Fingerprints, facial recognition, and eye scans are all fairly common and reliable biometrics. But the ultimate biometric is probably DNA, and it is becoming easier and less expensive to gather and analyze DNA samples, both in the field and in the lab. Sirchie, for example, offers DNA collection kits that range from buccal swabs to fingernail tests.

Parabon Nanolabs, a company based in Reston, Virginia, has released Snapshot, a service it calls “DNA phenotyping.” The service uses DNA samples to devise what company officials say are accurate portrayals of a person’s physical appearance and ancestry. This includes traits such as hair, eye, and skin color; sex; face morphology; and even freckling.

The tool uses technology called single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) as the basis for bioinformatics models that can predict physical traits in several areas. Customers simply submit DNA samples to Parabon labs, which then work to analyze the sample and return a profile within four to six weeks.

As biometric tools advance, so does the field’s use of biometrics in investigations and the accuracy of the results. Tested and well-known biomarkers such as fingerprints will always play an important role, but as these companies demonstrate, fingerprints may soon become just one of many things known about an “unknown” suspect. ♦

Notes:
¹David H. McElreath et al., Introduction to Law Enforcement (Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group, 2013), 273.
²Elke Oberg (marketing manager, Cognitec Systems), telephone interview, August 17, 2015.
³Ibid.
⁴Darren MacLeod (co-founder, chief marketing manager, LifeRaft), telephone interview, August 20, 2015.
⁵Ibid.

Please cite as

Scott Harris, “Biometrics Blends Time-Honored Tradition with Glimpses of the Future,” Product Feature, The Police Chief 82 (November 2015): 50–51.