title: The Reliability of Facial Recognition of Deceased Persons on Photographs.
abstract: In humanitarian emergencies, such as the current deceased migrants in the Mediterranean, antemortem documentation needed for identification may be limited. The use of visual identification has been previously reported in cases of mass disasters such as Thai tsunami. This pilot study explores the ability of observers to match unfamiliar faces of living and dead persons and whether facial morphology can be used for identification. A questionnaire was given to 41 students and five professionals in the field of forensic identification with the task to choose whether a facial photograph corresponds to one of the five photographs in a lineup and to identify the most useful features used for recognition. Although the overall recognition score did not significantly differ between professionals and students, the median scores of 78.1% and 80.0%, respectively, were too low to consider this method as a reliable identification method and thus needs to be supported by other means.
authors.affiliation: LABANOF, Laboratorio di Antropologia e Odontologia Forense, Dipartimento di Scienze Biomediche per la Salute, Università degli Studi di Milano, Milano, Italy.
authors.forename: Zuzana
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3424-4092
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Caplova
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Scienze Biomediche per la Salute, Università degli Studi di Milano, Milano, Italy.
authors.forename: Zuzana
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Obertova
authors.affiliation: LABANOF, Laboratorio di Antropologia e Odontologia Forense, Dipartimento di Scienze Biomediche per la Salute, Università degli Studi di Milano, Milano, Italy.|Dipartimento di Scienze Biomediche per la Salute, Università degli Studi di Milano, Milano, Italy.
authors.forename: Daniele M
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Gibelli
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Scienze Biomediche per la Salute, Università degli Studi di Milano, Milano, Italy.
authors.forename: Debora
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Mazzarelli
authors.affiliation: University Center of Legal Medicine, University Hospital, Geneva, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Tony
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Fracasso
authors.affiliation: Cameron Forensic Medical Sciences, Queen Mary University of London, London, UK.
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Vanezis
authors.affiliation: LABANOF, Laboratorio di Antropologia e Odontologia Forense, Dipartimento di Scienze Biomediche per la Salute, Università degli Studi di Milano, Milano, Italy.
authors.forename: Chiarella
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6532-6464
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Sforza
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Scienze Biomediche per la Salute, Università degli Studi di Milano, Milano, Italy.
authors.forename: Cristina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Cattaneo
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D056667:Biometric Identification; D000071298:Body Remains; D005145:Face / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D018732:Forensic Anthropology; D049429:Forensic Pathology; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D010781:Photography; D010865:Pilot Projects; D011180:Postmortem Changes; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: dead migrants; facial recognition; forensic anthropology; forensic science; postmortem identification; visual identification