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Biometrics in Forensic Science: Challenges, Lessons and New Technologies

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Biometrics in Forensic Science: Challenges, Lessons and New Technologies BIOMETRICS IN FORENSIC SCIENCE: CHALLENGES, LESSONS AND NEW TECHNOLOGIES Massimo Tistarelli*, Enrico Grosso* and Didier Meuwly** *University of Sassari Computer Vision Laboratory Porto Conte Ricerche, Tramariglio, Alghero email:tista,[email protected] ; http://visionlab.uniss.it **Netherland Forensic Institute The Hague, Netherlands email:d.meuwly@nfi.minvenj.nl; http://www.forensischinstituut.nl ABSTRACT infringements, the individualization of perpetrators and the Biometrics has historically found its natural mate in Foren- description of modus operandi. These tasks are embedded sics. The first applications found in the literature and over in several forensic processes: forensic investigation, forensic cited so many times, are related to biometric measurements evaluation, forensic intelligence, automated surveillance and for the identification of multiple offenders from some of their forensic identity management. biometric and anthropometric characteristics (tenprint cards) Methods like, the forensic anthropometry (Bertillon), and individualization of offender from traces found on crime- the forensic dactyloscopy (Galton) and “le portrait parle”´ scenes (e.g. fingermarks, earmarks, bitemarks, DNA). From (Reiss), exploiting physiological and behavioral traits, since sir Francis Galton, to the introduction of AFIS systems in the the end of the 19th century have been used for the identifica- scientific laboratories of police departments, Biometrics and tion of criminals as well as for the transmission of the infor- Forensics have been ”dating” with alternate results and out- mation relevant for remote identification. From the 1960s comes. As a matter of facts there are many technologies de- the development and implementation of automatic finger- veloped under the ”Biometrics umbrella” which may be op- print identification systems (AFIS) represent the first forensic timised to better impact several Forensic scenarios and crim- deployment of biometrics, with the automation of the iden- inal investigations. At the same time, there is an almost end- tity verification process [1]. This is also used for the au- less list of open problems and processes in Forensics which tomation of the first step of the individualization process (se- may benefit from the introduction of tailored Biometric tech- lection/rejection of candidates). In the 1980s the discovery nologies. Joining the two disciplines, on a proper scien- of forensic DNA profiling led to identity verification process tific ground, may only result in the success for both fields, from DNA reference material and the individualization pro- as well as a tangible benefit for the society. A number of cess from biological traces. Forensic processes may involve Biometric-related technolo- In the 1990s the development of computer science and gies, among them: Evidence evaluation, Forensic investiga- signal processing allowed a performance breakthrough of tion, Forensic Intelligence, Surveillance, Forensic ID man- biometric technologies, offering practical solutions for ac- agement and Verification. cess control based on several modalities. Speaker, face and The COST Action IC1106 funded by the European Com- gait recognition became of interest for forensic biometrics, mission, is trying to better understand how Biometric and as a consequence of the development of mobile telecommu- Forensics synergies can be exploited within a pan-European nication and surveillance technologies (CCTV). During the scientific alliance which extends its scope to partners from same decade the first solutions integrating biometric tech- USA, China and Australia. nologies and the Bayesian inference framework were pro- Several results have been already accomplished pursuing posed for forensic individualization, with the aim of ensuring research in this direction. Notably the studies in 2D and 3D a logical and transparent approach for the evaluation of the face recognition have been gradually applied to the forensic biometric forensic evidence. investigation process. In this paper a few solutions will be presented to match 3D face shapes along with some experi- In the last decade interest has arisen in so-called soft mental results. biometric modalities, based on biometric features such as height, weight, gender, hair, skin and clothing color. This in- 1. INTRODUCTION terest is mainly due to their availability of data, allowing cap- ture without constraint that is a prerequisite in surveillance Forensic science is defined as the body of scientific knowl- environments. However, their limited typicality enhanced the edge and technical methods used to solve questions related necessity to consider the fusion of several modalities. Some to criminal, civil and administrative law. Biometric technolo- aspects of this technological progress are potentially inter- gies are the set of automated methods used for the recogni- esting for forensic biometrics, for example the estimation of tion of individuals using their physiological and behavioral the body height and body weight from individuals present on traits. Forensic biometrics can be defined as the scientific still and live images. Attempts to combine several biometric discipline that makes use of the biometric technologies for modalities are not only of interest for forensic biometrics but the demonstration of the existence and the investigation of for forensic science in general, as it is related to the combina- tion of forensic evidence [2, 3]. The critical gap is the anal- in a realistic manner. These synergies will lead to the de- ysis of all the forensic processes that can integrate biometric velopment of a coherent joint vision and its dissemination technologies, to understand their specificities and translate across disciplinary and geographical borders [6]. them in clear needs, for the biometric community to be able to propose specific solutions. 2.1 Biometric evidence for forensic evaluation and inves- A number of Forensic processes may involve some sort tigation of Biometric-related technology, among them: Biometric data analysis may be of pivotal importance at any • Evidence evaluation. Likelihood ratio-based method to stage of the course of justice, be it the very first police inves- quantify the evidential value of biometric traces tigation or a court trial. In the police investigative mode, rea- • Forensic investigation. List of putative sources of bio- soning follows a process of generating likely explanations, metric traces from one or several combined modalities testing these with new observations and eliminating or re- • Forensic Intelligence. Grouping of putative sources of ranking the explanations. In the forensic evaluative mode for biometric traces on basis of one or several combined a court trial, an opinion of evidential weight, based upon case modalities specific propositions (hypotheses) and clear conditioning in- • Surveillance. Capture of biometric traces and detection formation (framework of circumstances) should be provided of putative sources on the basis of one or several com- for use as evidence in court. The main objective of this task bined modalities is to establish a robust methodology for forensic automatic • Forensic ID management and ID Verification. ID in- biometric recognition based on statistical and probabilistic frastructure and management, ID processes (create, chal- methods. Such a methodology should provide guidelines for lenge (access control / ID verification) and end an iden- the calculation of biometric evidence value and its strength tity) and the evaluation of this strength under operating conditions Several results have been already accomplished pursuing of casework. This theoretical approach and corresponding research in this direction. Notably the studies in 2D and 3D design methodology are intended to bridge the gap between face recognition are being gradually applied to the forensic forensics and biometrics. This task involves several aspects investigation process. [4] of the forensic casework process: from the collection of evi- dence to the evaluation of the strength of evidence, to provide 2. BIOMETRIC CHALLENGES IN FORENSICS a unified framework which models the assumptions, condi- tions, and uncertainty implicit in the casework. A complete Obtaining and using biometric evidence from the multime- set of interpretation methods, based on the likelihood ratio dia content available on social networking sites is a promis- approach, needs to be defined independently of the baseline ing forensic activity for which the forensic community lacks biometric recognition system [7]. It should also define the in- biometric solutions. On the other hand the biometric com- tegration procedure of these interpretation methods with the munity has developed technologies that are still not fully im- state-of-the-art automatic biometric recognition algorithms. plemented in all the possible forensic processes: • Even though uniqueness is not an issue in some forensic 2.2 Audiovisual biometrics for forensics examination processes [5], several law enforcement applications still Nowadays digital evidence rather than physical evidence is require the extent to which fingerprints coded in AFIS increasingly getting easier to acquire from the scene of crime systems are unique to individuals. or cyber-crime. 1 • The role of the human operator in comparing the results In fact, the Internet, computers, video surveillance cam- of automated processing of fingerprints, facial images, eras, mobile phones, telephone networks, social networks are etc. all examples of methods for
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