The federal government, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Department of Homeland Security and state and local law enforcement officials are looking to Michigan State University (MSU) to help them perfect a tattoo identification system.
MSU researcher Anil Jain has created an automatic image retrieval system that allows law enforcement to match scars, marks and tattoos to identify suspects and victims.
“The number of people getting tattoos is rapidly growing. About 20 percent of the population has at least one tattoo and this percentage is even higher among delinquents,” Jain says. “In fact, many gangs have a unique membership tattoo. So, with the rising popularity of tattoos, it makes sense to put these markers to good use.”
Currently, it is extremely difficult to run a tattoo through the existing identification system.
“The only way to identify someone from his or her tattoo is to look through books the size of a phone book and try to visually match tattoos based on some keywords,” he says. “This takes a lot of time and the process is often inaccurate.”
Jain’s “Tattoo-ID” software system uses biometrics to match tattoos with all suspects and victims who have a similar tattoo and are in the criminal database system.
Fingerprint identification has been used in the criminal justice system for years, but if a first time offender is arrested, it’s unlikely that law enforcement has their fingerprints on record. However, if the suspect has a recognized gang tattoo, they can be traced to a group and identified.
Last month, the state police helped Jain add more than 100,00 images into the database. The database will grow as the technology becomes better at identifying tattoo details.
“To my knowledge, we are the only university working on this problem,” Jain says. “This can also be used to identify victims in mass disasters whose bodies are often decomposed.”
Source: Anil Jain, MSU College of Engineering
Ivy Hughes, development news editor, can be reached here.
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