Friction ridge skin - Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS)

This contribution describes the development and the forensic use of automated fingerprint identification systems (AFISs). AFISs were initially developed in order to overcome the limitations of the paper-based fingerprint collections, by digitizing the ten-print cards in computerized databases and to translate the manual pattern classification into computer-friendly codes. Then, technologies to automate the fingerprint feature extraction and comparison were developed, and AFISs were implemented on a large scale in order to improve the process of identification of repetitive offenders based on the ten-print cards. Further development of the fingerprint biometric technology allowed for the inclusion of palmprint reference databases and for the processing of fingermarks and palmmarks with, as a result, the partial automation of the forensic investigation and intelligence process. In the field of AFIS, the challenges for the future call for further automation of the feature extraction from low-quality fingerprint and fingermark images, for more transparency in the processes, for the improvement of the interoperability of the systems on a global level and the combination of biometric modalities as well as for the use of fingerprint biometric technology and scientific methodology, to further develop the forensic friction ridge evaluation process

Prevalence of Pores in Latent Fingerprints

Of the many biometric traits recognized today, fingerprints are the most prevalent and familiar. The analysis of fingerprints involves level 1, level 2, and/or level 3 detail in the identification of a potential match. Traditionally, fingerprint matching was completely performed by hand, utilizing the ACE-V method. Thanks to the development of rapidly evolving technology, fingerprint matching has become an automated procedure through the use of fingerprint matching algorithms. In the literature, there has been an increase in the interest of developing Automatic Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) algorithms that include level 3 details in the matching process. These studies have utilized live scanned and/or inked fingerprints, rather than latent fingerprints. However, practical use of AFIS algorithms involves unknown fingerprints, such as those collected at crime scenes, which are often latent in nature. In addition, research has also found that there is a wide variety in size and shape of pore structure, making automatic detection of pores difficult. The resultant quality of latent fingerprints is subject to various factors at the time of deposition, such as the deposition surface, environmental conditions, and composition of the fingerprint itself. Consequently, these factors, in addition to the inherent variance in pore structure, may very well affect the observance and use of level 3 details within a fingerprint. If the prevalence of pores proves to be unreliable and inconsistent in latent fingerprints, the push for including level 3 detail in the AFIS matching process may all be for nothing. For this reason, the effects of latent fingerprint deposition factors on pore identification needs to be considered and currently appears to be greatly under studied. In effort to begin to fill this gap in the current research, newly deposited latent fingerprints were collected and developed using both black fingerprint powder and cyanoacrylate fuming. Developed fingerprints were subsequently imaged via digital scan or digital camera, and enhanced using either Image J or Adobe\textsuperscript{\textregistered} Photoshop\textsuperscript{\textregistered}. Following image enhancement, pores were manually identified and marked using the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) developed Universal Latent Workstation (ULW) software. Qualitative assessment of the 633 fingerprints collected resulted in 380 usable fingerprints for the remainder of the study. Observations regarding pore count within the replicate fingerprint sets indicated that total pore count/presence was not consistent. The Mann Whitney U test indicated that neither development method, black fingerprint powder nor cyanoacrylate fuming, produced pore data any better or worse than the other. Lastly, assessment of pore location resulted in a greater number of similarity scores being lower than the established threshold, indicating that pore location is not as easily assessed nor interpreted as hoped

Proof-of-Concept

Biometry is an area in great expansion and is considered as possible solution to cases where high authentication parameters are required. Although this area is quite advanced in theoretical terms, using it in practical terms still carries some problems. The systems available still depend on a high cooperation level to achieve acceptable performance levels, which was the backdrop to the development of the following project. By studying the state of the art, we propose the creation of a new and less cooperative biometric system that reaches acceptable performance levels.A constante necessidade de parâmetros mais elevados de segurança, nomeadamente ao nível de autenticação, leva ao estudo biometria como possível solução. Actualmente os mecanismos existentes nesta área tem por base o conhecimento de algo que se sabe ”password” ou algo que se possui ”codigo Pin”. Contudo este tipo de informação é facilmente corrompida ou contornada. Desta forma a biometria é vista como uma solução mais robusta, pois garante que a autenticação seja feita com base em medidas físicas ou compartimentais que definem algo que a pessoa é ou faz (”who you are” ou ”what you do”). Sendo a biometria uma solução bastante promissora na autenticação de indivíduos, é cada vez mais comum o aparecimento de novos sistemas biométricos. Estes sistemas recorrem a medidas físicas ou comportamentais, de forma a possibilitar uma autenticação (reconhecimento) com um grau de certeza bastante considerável. O reconhecimento com base no movimento do corpo humano (gait), feições da face ou padrões estruturais da íris, são alguns exemplos de fontes de informação em que os sistemas actuais se podem basear. Contudo, e apesar de provarem um bom desempenho no papel de agentes de reconhecimento autónomo, ainda estão muito dependentes a nível de cooperação exigida. Tendo isto em conta, e tudo o que já existe no ramo do reconhecimento biometrico, esta área está a dar passos no sentido de tornar os seus métodos o menos cooperativos poss??veis. Possibilitando deste modo alargar os seus objectivos para além da mera autenticação em ambientes controlados, para casos de vigilância e controlo em ambientes não cooperativos (e.g. motins, assaltos, aeroportos). É nesta perspectiva que o seguinte projecto surge. Através do estudo do estado da arte, pretende provar que é possível criar um sistema capaz de agir perante ambientes menos cooperativos, sendo capaz de detectar e reconhecer uma pessoa que se apresente ao seu alcance.O sistema proposto PAIRS (Periocular and Iris Recognition Systema) tal como nome indica, efectua o reconhecimento através de informação extraída da íris e da região periocular (região circundante aos olhos). O sistema é construído com base em quatro etapas: captura de dados, pré-processamento, extração de características e reconhecimento. Na etapa de captura de dados, foi montado um dispositivo de aquisição de imagens com alta resolução com a capacidade de capturar no espectro NIR (Near-Infra-Red). A captura de imagens neste espectro tem como principal linha de conta, o favorecimento do reconhecimento através da íris, visto que a captura de imagens sobre o espectro visível seria mais sensível a variações da luz ambiente. Posteriormente a etapa de pré-processamento implementada, incorpora todos os módulos do sistema responsáveis pela detecção do utilizador, avaliação de qualidade de imagem e segmentação da íris. O modulo de detecção é responsável pelo desencadear de todo o processo, uma vez que esta é responsável pela verificação da exist?ncia de um pessoa em cena. Verificada a sua exist?ncia, são localizadas as regiões de interesse correspondentes ? íris e ao periocular, sendo também verificada a qualidade com que estas foram adquiridas. Concluídas estas etapas, a íris do olho esquerdo é segmentada e normalizada. Posteriormente e com base em vários descritores, é extraída a informação biométrica das regiões de interesse encontradas, e é criado um vector de características biométricas. Por fim, é efectuada a comparação dos dados biometricos recolhidos, com os já armazenados na base de dados, possibilitando a criação de uma lista com os níveis de semelhança em termos biometricos, obtendo assim um resposta final do sistema. Concluída a implementação do sistema, foi adquirido um conjunto de imagens capturadas através do sistema implementado, com a participação de um grupo de voluntários. Este conjunto de imagens permitiu efectuar alguns testes de desempenho, verificar e afinar alguns parâmetros, e proceder a optimização das componentes de extração de características e reconhecimento do sistema. Analisados os resultados foi possível provar que o sistema proposto tem a capacidade de exercer as suas funções perante condições menos cooperativas

Estimativa temporal de impressões digitais latentes : desenvolvimento de métodos espectroscópicos com aplicação quimiométrica e de imageamento químico por espectrometria de massas para a rotina forense

A Papiloscopia é uma área de Ciências Forenses que é responsável pela identificação humana, sendo as impressões digitais o elementos-chave, que são uma das principais e mais frequentes evidências físicas em investigações criminais. Um desafio para a análise das impressões digitais é o estabelecimento de sua datação (envelhecimento), ou seja, o período decorrido entre sua afixação na cena do crime e a análise do laboratório. O envelhecimento da impressão digital presente em uma cena de crime pode ser útil para discernir um evento ou situá-lo na linha temporal investigativa. No entanto, as impressões digitais são uma matriz biológica complexa com fatores de variabilidade intrínseca e extrínseca ao doador, sendo um desafio não apenas para identificar os componentes bioquímicos, mas também para entender seus padrões de envelhecimento. Para isso, os métodos analíticos guiaram esta tese em duas revisões: a primeira, foram selecionadas as classes de métodos mais utilizadas para análise de impressão digital e a segunda, quais componentes bioquímicos presentes nas amostras fornecem informações sobre a estimativa temporal das amostras. Em relação às classes de métodos, a espectrometria de massa provou ser a técnica promissora para análise de impressão digital, destacando a fonte de ionização/dessorção assistida por matriz (MALDI MS) como a mais usada. Com isso, um método MALDI MS foi desenvolvido com a aplicação de imagens químicas (IMS) que, a partir da seleção de íons dos componentes de maior intensidade nas amostras, permitiram a visualização de impressões digitais cinquenta dias após seu depoimento. A segunda classe de métodos mais utilizada foi a espectroscopia, na qual um método de Microespectroscopia de Infravermelho com Transformada de Fourier (μ-FTIR) foi desenvolvido para a análise de impressões digitais sebáceas monitoradas por uma semana, seguidas pelo uso do método não- supervisionado de análise linear discriminante (LDA). Observou -se que, apesar dos perfis do doador serem semelhantes, o método permitiu a elaboração de uma tendência de separação entre as amostras com base no tempo de deposição. E, além disso, foi possível separar as amostras por doador. Assim, este trabalho compõe um passo em direção à aplicação da ciência analítica à Papiloscopia como um recurso fundamental da justiça na geração de evidências robustas para a busca da verdade.Fingerprint Analysis is the area of Forensic Sciences that deals with human identification, having fingerprints as key elements, which are one of the main and most frequent physical evidences in criminal investigations. A challenge for the fingerprint analysis is the establishment of their aging, that is, the period elapsed between their affixation at the crime scene and the forensic analysis. The fingerprint aging estimation at a crime scene can be useful in discerning an event or placing it in time. However, fingerprints are a complex biological matrix with intrinsic and extrinsic variability factors to the donor, being a challenge not only to identify the biochemical components present, but also to understand their aging patterns. For this, the analytical methods guided this research in two reviews: the first selected the classes of methods most used for fingerprint analysis and the second, which biochemical components present in the samples can provide information on the temporal estimation. Regarding the methods classes, mass spectrometry proved to be the most promising technique for fingerprint analysis, highlighting the Matrix Assisted Ionization Desorption (MALDI MS) source as the most used. With this, a MALDI MS method was developed with the application of Chemical Imaging (IMS) which, from the component’s ions selection of major intensity in the spectra, allowed the fingerprints visualization fifty days after their deposition. The second most used methods class were spectroscopy, which are mostly low-cost and non-destructive – when compared to mass spectrometry and provide results in seconds. Thus, a Micro-Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (μ-FTIR) method was developed with sebaceous fingerprints were monitored and analyzed for one week followed by application of a supervised method of Linear Discriminant Analysis. It was seen that despite the donor profiles being similar, rich in fatty acids from contact contamination, the method allowed for the elaboration of a separation trend between the samples based on the time elapsed since the deposition of the fingerprints. And, additionally, it was possible to segregate the samples by donor. Thus, this work composes a step towards the application of analytical science to Fingerprint Analysis as a foundation resource of justice in the generation of reliable evidence for the search of truth of the facts

Fingerprint-based biometric recognition allied to fuzzy-neural feature classification.

The research investigates fingerprint recognition as one of the most reliable biometrics identification methods. An automatic identification process of humans-based on fingerprints requires the input fingerprint to be matched with a large number of fingerprints in a database. To reduce the search time and computational complexity, it is desirable to classify the database of fingerprints into an accurate and consistent manner so that the input fingerprint is matched only with a subset of the fingerprints in the database. In this regard, the research addressed fingerprint classification. The goal is to improve the accuracy and speed up of existing automatic fingerprint identification algorithms. The investigation is based on analysis of fingerprint characteristics and feature classification using neural network and fuzzy-neural classifiers.The methodology developed, is comprised of image processing, computation of a directional field image, singular-point detection, and feature vector encoding. The statistical distribution of feature vectors was analysed using SPSS. Three types of classifiers, namely, multi-layered perceptrons, radial basis function and fuzzy-neural methods were implemented. The developed classification systems were tested and evaluated on 4,000 fingerprint images on the NIST-4 database. For the five-class problem, classification accuracy of 96.2% for FNN, 96.07% for MLP and 84.54% for RBF was achieved, without any rejection. FNN and MLP classification results are significant in comparison with existing studies, which have been reviewed

A critical review of the current state of forensic science knowledge and its integration in legal systems

Forensic science has a significant historical and contemporary relationship with the criminal justice system. It is a relationship between two disciplines whose origins stem from different backgrounds. It is trite that effective communication assist in resolving underlying problems in any given context. However, a lack of communication continues to characterise the intersection between law and science. As recently as 2019, a six-part symposium on the use of forensic science in the criminal justice system again posed the question on how the justice system could ensure the reliability of forensic science evidence presented during trials. As the law demands finality, science is always evolving and can never be considered finite or final. Legal systems do not always adapt to the nature of scientific knowledge, and are not willing to abandon finality when that scientific knowledge shifts. Advocacy plays an important role in the promotion of forensic science, particularly advocacy to the broader scientific community for financial support, much needed research and more testing. However, despite its important function, advocacy should not be conflated with science. The foundation of advocacy is a cause; whereas the foundation of science is fact. The objective of this research was to conduct a qualitative literature review of the field of forensic science; to identify gaps in the knowledge of forensic science and its integration in the criminal justice system. The literature review will provide researchers within the field of forensic science with suggested research topics requiring further examination and research. To achieve its objective, the study critically analysed the historical development of, and evaluated the use of forensic science evidence in legal systems generally, including its role regarding the admissibility or inadmissibility of the evidence in the courtroom. In conclusion, it was determined that the breadth of forensic scientific knowledge is comprehensive but scattered. The foundational underpinning of the four disciplines, discussed in this dissertation, has been put to the legal test on countless occasions. Some gaps still remain that require further research in order to strengthen the foundation of the disciplines. Human influence will always be present in examinations and interpretations and will lean towards subjective decision making.JurisprudenceD. Phil

Mission-Critical Communications from LMR to 5G: a Technology Assessment approach for Smart City scenarios

Radiocommunication networks are one of the main support tools of agencies that carry out actions in Public Protection & Disaster Relief (PPDR), and it is necessary to update these communications technologies from narrowband to broadband and integrated to information technologies to have an effective action before society. Understanding that this problem includes, besides the technical aspects, issues related to the social context to which these systems are inserted, this study aims to construct scenarios, using several sources of information, that helps the managers of the PPDR agencies in the technological decisionmaking process of the Digital Transformation of Mission-Critical Communication considering Smart City scenarios, guided by the methods and approaches of Technological Assessment (TA).As redes de radiocomunicações são uma das principais ferramentas de apoio dos órgãos que realizam ações de Proteção Pública e Socorro em desastres, sendo necessário atualizar essas tecnologias de comunicação de banda estreita para banda larga, e integra- las às tecnologias de informação, para se ter uma atuação efetiva perante a sociedade . Entendendo que esse problema inclui, além dos aspectos técnicos, questões relacionadas ao contexto social ao qual esses sistemas estão inseridos, este estudo tem por objetivo a construção de cenários, utilizando diversas fontes de informação que auxiliem os gestores destas agências na tomada de decisão tecnológica que envolve a transformação digital da Comunicação de Missão Crítica considerando cenários de Cidades Inteligentes, guiado pelos métodos e abordagens de Avaliação Tecnológica (TA)

Latent Print Examination and Human Factors: Improving the Practice Through a Systems Approach: The Report of the Expert Working Group on Human Factors in Latent Print Analysis

Fingerprints have provided a valuable method of personal identification in forensic science and criminal investigations for more than 100 years. Fingerprints left at crime scenes generally are latent prints—unintentional reproductions of the arrangement of ridges on the skin made by the transfer of materials (such as amino acids, proteins, polypeptides, and salts) to a surface. Palms and the soles of feet also have friction ridge skin that can leave latent prints. The examination of a latent print consists of a series of steps involving a comparison of the latent print to a known (or exemplar) print. Courts have accepted latent print evidence for the past century. However, several high-profile cases in the United States and abroad have highlighted the fact that human errors can occur, and litigation and expressions of concern over the evidentiary reliability of latent print examinations and other forensic identification procedures has increased in the last decade. “Human factors” issues can arise in any experience- and judgment-based analytical process such as latent print examination. Inadequate training, extraneous knowledge about the suspects in the case or other matters, poor judgment, health problems, limitations of vision, complex technology, and stress are but a few factors that can contribute to errors. A lack of standards or quality control, poor management, insufficient resources, and substandard working conditions constitute other potentially contributing factors

Human identification through advanced forensic mass spectrometry of blood and fingermarks

Matrix assisted laser desorption ionisation (MALDI) mass spectrometry (MS) has been demonstrated in recent years to be an effective toolbox in the detection and identification of substances of forensic relevance. The goal of this PhD programme was to develop analytical protocols to obtain novel molecular information from two biological sample types; fingermarks and bloodstains. MALDI MS was employed to acquire mass spectrometry profiling (MSP) and mass spectrometry imaging (MSI) data from these two common evidence types to generate biological and chemical information towards a molecular ‗suspect profile‘. The use of MALDI MS to acquire data on the peptide and protein composition of fingermarks, in combination with advanced statistical processing was developed to investigate the determination of sex from fingermarks. A blind validation study was conducted for the robust, multifaceted identification of human and animal blood, other human biofluids and interferent substances from a large sample set of stains and fingermarks. MALDI MS was employed in combination with a ‗bottom-up‘ proteomic approach for the determination of biological matrices through the identification of proteotypic peptides. MALDI MS was also utilised for the determination of a subset of haemoglobin variants in human blood, through the detection of proteotypic peptides, employing a ‗bottom-up‘ proteomic approach. The detection of haemoglobin variants in blood encountered at a crime scene has implications towards associative evidence of the presence of an individual, which grows in significance the rarer (and less prevalent) the variant. The application of these three techniques towards these two biological matrices, and the validation data acquired for each, demonstrates their analytical capabilities. In all cases they have been demonstrated to be compatible with visualisation techniques (both fingermark enhancement techniques and blood enhancement techniques, respectively), showing potential for their integration into the current operational workflows for both fingermarks and blood. In conclusion, although only demonstrated under laboratory controlled conditions, MALDI MS shows promise towards the future analysis of these biological matrices within evidence recovery and investigative workflows, when specific molecular information may be sought