Innovatrics Adds Tattoo Recognition Tool to Law Enforcement ABIS

Innovatrics Is allowing law enforcement agencies to identify suspects using soft biometric characteristics like scars, marks, and tattoos (SMT). To that end, the company has updated its Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS) to give investigators the ability to upload photos of SMTs to an ABIS database, and to search that database for potential matches.

According to Innovatrics, the enhanced ABIS will help law enforcement identify suspects in the absence of high quality face or fingerprint images. In that regard, the company noted that soft biometric features like scars and tattoos are better identifiers than broad demographic traits like race, gender, and age, largely because scars and tattoos are more unique to an individual.

In practice, investigators can use the Innovatrics ABIS to upload a photo of a tattoo or another marker, and then use the platform to apply the relevant labels and link it to an individual profile. From there, investigators can search through the rest of the database to find other incidences of that particular marker. Any photos should be compliant with and classified according to the NIST’s guidelines for photographic evidence. The photos themselves can be sorted based on location and the type of marker, amongst other things.

Hard biometrics like face and fingerprint recognition are still the first option for most investigations. However, SMTs can help generate a short list of suspects in cases in which law enforcement does not have access to those more concrete identifiers. The full Innovatrics ABIS can be used for biometric onboarding and enrollment in a number of different sectors, though the SMT feature is geared primarily toward law enforcement.

Innovatrics has previously argued that its SmartFace surveillance platform can help investigators identify suspects in video feeds. The company has also introduced two new algorithms to improve its passive liveness detection capabilities. 

–

November 22, 2021 – by Eric Weiss