Answer

Identifying Biometrics

            Biometrics is among the most interesting ways of handling the crime. It is a digital way of determining the identity of an individual based on his or her physical (face, finger print, iris, geometry, & retina), as well as, behavioral characteristics. This technology contributes significantly to the crime detection since it links the traces to the persons kept in the database, grading the identity of individuals and subdividing individuals from which the trace may come from (Delac, 2004). Recently, investigative bodies such as FBI have been adopting new systems that enhance the performance and accuracy of their current setup while bringing on board additional biometrics such as improved palm scans, facial recognition, and iris scans. Therefore, this paper describes facial recognition and palm scans as forms of biometrics and explains how they assist in identifying suspects during criminal investigations. It also highlights some of the challenges or limitations of these forms of biometrics in relation to criminal investigations.

             Facial recognition biometric technology plays a critical role in criminal investigations. Facial recognition as stated by Parmar and Mehta (2014) refers to a computer based system that digitally identifies an individual based on the video or image that is later matched to the facial image kept in the facial biometric database. International investigative bodies such as FBI have adopted the Intestate Photo System Facial Recognition Pilot that provides the participating law enforcement agencies to adopt face recognition to scrutinize against over 15 million mug shots, generating a graded list of the possible matches with the help of algorithms to scrutinize the database and look for a match. The system as posited by Monika and Anup (2016) matches the images captured at the crime scene or booking station with mug shots kept in the Next Generation Database that has high possibility of becoming a match. Dessimoz & Champod (2008) noted that law enforcement agencies Michigan State have established that facial recognition is essential in trying to identify unknown suspects who commit offenses of fraud and theft. When deployed to international airports, face recognition technology enhances the security of the airport by alerting the public safety officers in case a person who matches the images of a famous terrorist suspect enters the facility’s security checkpoint. Essentially, facial recognition technology minimizes the investigation duration for criminal cases that have facial video evidence thereby minimizing case load for investigators. Moreover, it ensures rapid synthesis of evidence and generates a list that contains persons of interest during the investigation once the crime has occurred thereby enabling the investigators to identify the suspect before he or she evades arrest by going into exile (Monika & Anup, 2016).

            One major challenge of facial recognition technology is that it is inaccurate in positively identifying the suspect as compared to fingerprint technology. As already stated, facial recognition technology matches images captured at the crime scene or booking station using mug shots stored in the NGI database that possibly be matched. However, given that the quality of mug shots differs significantly, the accuracy rate is often questioned or lower.

            Voice biometrics is another form of biometrics that plays a critical role in the crime investigation. The technology identifies a speaker based on the traits of her or his voice. It is normally deployed when it is the only available technology for identifying the traits such as telephoned bomb threat among others. The technology has two approaches; text dependent that recognizes voices according to the fixed preprogrammed phrases, and secondly text independent that entails recognition of a person regardless of what he or she is speaking. Voice biometrics allows crime investigation officers to measure traits in a particular sample by biologically expressing such traits through the real sound of a criminal’s voice instead of the shape of the words they pronounce (Monika & Anup, 2016). The technology also allows crime investigators to use complex algorithms to relate the identities to voice. It allows the officers to design a huge database that contains million voices of famous criminals or persons on the watch list. Reportedly, it takes only five seconds to scrutinize through more than 10, 000 voices provided the recording is of good quality. The major challenge of voice biometrics is that because of various positioning on obtaining the voice, imperfect voicing conditions, environmental changes, noise and deformations, the two voice samples of the same biometric trait may yield inaccurate results (Prabhakar & Pankanti, 2003).

            In conclusion, biometrics continues to advance as new applications are being introduced. Essentially, there are myriad of challenges, controversies and concerns of using them in criminal investigations such as accuracy concerns, as well as, privacy issues. Nonetheless, the benefits of using such technologies in crime investigation surpass the concerns and challenges noted. Therefore, crime investigators should however address the issues of accuracy so that people can have confidence in the investigation results obtained using these technology.