Identification from dorsal finger pattern: a new approach

The dorsal aspect of the hand has been little studied for the purpose of identification and hence the present study was undertaken to explore the feasibility of considering the skin creases on the dorsal aspect of the proximal inter-phalangeal joints (dorsal finger pattern) as a criteria for personal identification. The study included 257 native Bengali subjects, 140 males and 117 females from the city of Kolkata. The dorsal aspects of the fingers of both hands were photographed by a digital camera and the images were analysed on a computer using Microsoft Photoeditor. The skin creases over the proximal inter-phalangeal joints were studied in three segments - proximal, middle and distal. Thus a total of 257 × 10 × 3 = 7710 segments were studied to determine the dorsal finger patterns. Five basic types of stems were noted - horizontal, vertical, oblique, semi-lunar and mixed. Among these the horizontal stem was the most common at 90.49%. Branching was of two types - body branching and terminal branching. Body branching was more common than the terminal type. Semi-lunar stem was the rarest type of stem comprising less than 1%. Accuracy of the technique for confirmation of identity was found to be 91.9%.