Forensic Biometrics: Challenges, Innovation and Opportunities

Forensic science has always benefited from the adoption and exploitation of novel technologies to perform and analyze measurements at a crime scene and in the laboratory. Modern information technologies boosted many forensic procedures, such as accelerating and automating the comparison of fingerprints and fingermarks, and, recently, the analysis and comparison of images from human faces. Moreover, the recent advent of fast and performant Machine Learning (often dubbed AI) models, greatly improved the applicability of automatic face recognition to operational scenarios. However, even though technology has enabled the development of such systems, there are several hindering factors which must be taken into account. In this chapter the technological, legal and societal factors potentially enabling and fostering the development and application of automatic face recognition in forensic procedures are described and discussed. Also, the current issues and main concerns, restricting the mass-adoption of automatic face recognition technologies in forensic cases are presented. This chapter attempts not only to document both enablers and roadblockers of forensic face recognition, but also provides some promising research avenues and suggestions for a better application of these technologies in today’s society.