UNIQUENESS OF BARE FEET AND ITS USE AS A POSSIBLE MEANS OF IDENTIFICATION

In order to study the uniqueness of barefoot impressions, a computer d atabase has been constructed using inked barefoot prints from voluntee rs. The data consists of 19 different measurements and a tracing of th e impression of each foot. Searches through the present database of 40 00 impressions produce an apparent match only if the margin of measure ment error is set at an extremely large value. In these few cases, how ever, a visual examination of the 'matched' prints is sufficient to sh ow that they are not the same.