Informing the judgments of fingerprint analysts using quality metric and statistical assessment tools

Langenburg, Glenn; Champod, Christophe; Genessay, Thibault

doi:10.1016/j.forsciint.2011.12.017

Cited by 48 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…Examiners are highly accurate when they individualize [2]–[3], but they do not always agree whether the evidence supports individualization, as opposed to exclusion (different sources) or inconclusive [2], [4]–[5]. There are two aspects to the sufficiency criteria: the examiner's assessment of the content of the prints, and how much agreement is sufficient (given the clarity, distortion, and the rarity of the configurations of the features); neither is standardized.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Measuring What Latent Fingerprint Examiners Consider Sufficient Information for Individualization Determinations

et al. 2014

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Latent print examiners use their expertise to determine whether the information present in a comparison of two fingerprints (or palmprints) is sufficient to conclude that the prints were from the same source (individualization). When fingerprint evidence is presented in court, it is the examiner's determination—not an objective metric—that is presented. This study was designed to ascertain the factors that explain examiners' determinations of sufficiency for individualization. Volunteer latent print examiners (n = 170) were each assigned 22 pairs of latent and exemplar prints for examination, and annotated features, correspondence of features, and clarity. The 320 image pairs were selected specifically to control clarity and quantity of features. The predominant factor differentiating annotations associated with individualization and inconclusive determinations is the count of corresponding minutiae; other factors such as clarity provided minimal additional discriminative value. Examiners' counts of corresponding minutiae were strongly associated with their own determinations; however, due to substantial variation of both annotations and determinations among examiners, one examiner's annotation and determination on a given comparison is a relatively weak predictor of whether another examiner would individualize. The extensive variability in annotations also means that we must treat any individual examiner's minutia counts as interpretations of the (unknowable) information content of the prints: saying “the prints had N corresponding minutiae marked” is not the same as “the prints had N corresponding minutiae.” More consistency in annotations, which could be achieved through standardization and training, should lead to process improvements and provide greater transparency in casework.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Measuring What Latent Fingerprint Examiners Consider Sufficient Information for Individualization Determinations

et al. 2014

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“…This is a typical and expected situation in complex investigative cases, and similar results have also been reported in other studies (e.g., Refs. [9,[34][35][36]). Moreover, the use of informal characterizations that were interpreted differently by examiners and diverged from the norms of the Forensic Laboratory, was a common feature in our data.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Discrepancies in expert decision-making in forensic fingerprint examination

Mustonen¹,

Hakkarainen²,

Tuunainen³

et al. 2015

Forensic Science International

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“…Given the higher erroneous exclusion rates evidence in recent error rate studies [8,11,12,[23][24], and combined with the fact that routine verification of exclusion decisions did not become prevalent until more recent times [10], then it is likely that many of these cold cases with unidentified latent prints have potential matches sitting in those cases. In our examination of the 56 adjudicated cases in the present paper, many of the new potential "identifications" were from victims.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%