Forensic facial comparison in South Africa: State of the science

TY - JOUR

T1 - Forensic facial comparison in South Africa

T2 - State of the science

AU - Steyn, M.

AU - Pretorius, M.

AU - Briers, N.

AU - Bacci, N.

AU - Johnson, A.

AU - Houlton, T. M. R.

N1 - Funding Information: We are greatly indebted towards Prof Caroline Wilkinson for her efforts in helping to establish FFC in South Africa, and for the training that she has conducted here. The research of M. Steyn and N. Briers is sponsored by the National Research Foundation of South Africa . Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this study are those of the authors and therefore the NRF does not accept any liability in regard thereto. We would like to thank the South African Police Service for their continued support of our training programmes. Publisher Copyright: © 2018 Elsevier B.V.

PY - 2018/6

Y1 - 2018/6

N2 - Forensic facial comparison (FFC) is a scientific technique used to link suspects to a crime scene based on the analysis of photos or video recordings from that scene. While basic guidelines on practice and training are provided by the Facial Identification Scientific Working Group, details of how these are applied across the world are scarce. FFC is frequently used in South Africa, with more than 700 comparisons conducted in the last two years alone. In this paper the standards of practice are outlined, with new proposed levels of agreement/conclusions. We outline three levels of training that were established, with training in facial anatomy, terminology, principles of image comparison, image science, facial recognition and computer skills being aimed at developing general competency. Training in generating court charts and understanding court case proceedings are being specifically developed for the South African context. Various shortcomings still exist, specifically with regard to knowledge of the reliability of the technique. These need to be addressed in future research.

AB - Forensic facial comparison (FFC) is a scientific technique used to link suspects to a crime scene based on the analysis of photos or video recordings from that scene. While basic guidelines on practice and training are provided by the Facial Identification Scientific Working Group, details of how these are applied across the world are scarce. FFC is frequently used in South Africa, with more than 700 comparisons conducted in the last two years alone. In this paper the standards of practice are outlined, with new proposed levels of agreement/conclusions. We outline three levels of training that were established, with training in facial anatomy, terminology, principles of image comparison, image science, facial recognition and computer skills being aimed at developing general competency. Training in generating court charts and understanding court case proceedings are being specifically developed for the South African context. Various shortcomings still exist, specifically with regard to knowledge of the reliability of the technique. These need to be addressed in future research.

KW - CCTV

KW - FISWG

KW - Image analysis

KW - Photo comparison

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85046148979

U2 - 10.1016/j.forsciint.2018.04.006

DO - 10.1016/j.forsciint.2018.04.006

M3 - Comment/debate

C2 - 29698915

AN - SCOPUS:85046148979

SN - 0379-0738

VL - 287

SP - 190

EP - 194

JO - Forensic Science International

JF - Forensic Science International

ER -