[Problems associated with chronological age estimation of children exploited in child pornography production]

Chronological age assessment of young persons featuring in pornographic pictures and videos is crucial to prove a violation of law. The paper discusses possibilities of and difficulties inherent in age estimation in cases of production and distribution of child pornography. The presented problems were divided into technical and individual development-associated issues. Technical difficulties included lack of a reference system for biological features reconstruction, poor quality and resolution of pictures or movies, pictures retouching and photomontage. The author stressed that biological hindrances in age assessment were the consequences of interpersonal variation of developmental patterns, namely overlapping of ranges typical for feature values at particular ages and biological variations between different human populations. The described problems can render age estimation impossible or far from precise. Developing more accurate methods of estimating age from pictures and videos requires the collaboration of specialists in the field of auxology, anthropology, pediatrics, as well as experts in photography and video techniques.