Eight measurements of the body can identify anyone on earth | The Lead: USING data from 4,000 United States armed services personnel, a forensic anatomist has found that people are more easily and accurately identified by their body measurements than their facial features - even through clothing.
Teghan Lucas, University of Adelaide PhD student, says that 'body recognition', using just eight measurements, can reduce the chance of finding someone with duplicate measurements to one in a quintillion.
This technique would be useful for criminal and missing persons cases - and requires less data points than facial recognition to be accurate.
"There's been a lot of work conducted over the years on facial recognition. This makes sense - humans have evolved to recognise faces, which is part of our survival mechanism, and the face contains some very distinctive features," Lucas says.
Problems arise when the face is covered during a criminal act, or video evidence is of a low quality. The larger measurements of the body are easier to make out and quantify than finer details on the face. Facial expressions can also alter perceptions and measurements of facial features.
