MorphoTrak (Safran Group) is pleased to announce the acquisition of a unique tattoo matching technology developed by Michigan State University (MSU). With this innovative technology, the corrections and law enforcement community will now have the capability to accurately and efficiently search tattoo image databases toentify suspects, criminals and victims. This content-based image retrieval and matching technology uses features such as color, shape, and texture present in tattoo images instead of labels or keywords, to compute the similarity between images.
“It’s good to see this type of technology being made available to law enforcement agencies. I have seen the initial successes achieved by the National Gang Targeting, Enforcement & Coordination Center, the National Gang Intelligence Center, and the National Capitol Region AFIS system in linking subjects via tattoos. With the increased awareness of the value of matching tattoos for suspect and victimentification as well as associating tattoos to particular gang affiliation, automatic image retrieval and indexing capabilities are likely to be integrated into the FBI’s Next Generationentification (NGI) system later in this decade to serve as another valuable tool for the criminal justice community,” explained Peter Higgins of Higgins and Associates, International and former Deputy Assistant Director in charge of the FBI’s IAFIS program.
“This technology is an invaluable tool to assist law enforcement with intelligence gathering for suspect and victimentification. We trust MorphoTrak to bring this technology to bear at all levels of the law enforcement community,” said Anil Jain, University Distinguished Professor in the Department of Computer Science & Engineering at MichiganStateUniversity. Jain has received multiple awards for his contributions and leads MSU’s research in pattern recognition and biometrics.
“MorphoTrak understands the importance of joining forces with our nation’s top academic institutions to help extend crime fighting capabilities with groundbreaking technologies,” explained Daniel Vassy, President and CEO of MorphoTrak. “We are uniquely positioned in the industry to bring this technology to market to assist law enforcement and corrections agencies in making our streets safer.”
According to a 2006 PewResearchCenter survey, over 36 percent of individuals between the ages of 18-40 have at least one tattoo. This proportion is much higher among criminals and members of criminal gangs. Consequently, federal, state and local law enforcement agencies have been collecting images of tattoos for many years. Although a tattoo alone cannotentify a person, this alternative trait provides valuable information that can help narrow the field andentify gang members.
A typical tattoo search today involves matching a text description of the tattoo making the process slow and inaccurate. With image-based tattoo matching, agencies will now have the ability to more fully exploit their large repositories of tattoo images for theentification of suspects and victims. Tattoos are particularly important for criminalentification as they often contain subtle clues to a suspect's background and history, such as gang membership, previous criminal convictions, claims of criminal activity and number of years spent in jail.
About MorphoTrack Inc. MorphoTrak, Inc., a subsidiary of Safran USA, provides biometric andentity management solutions to the U.S. and Canadian markets. Formed in April 2009 from the merger of Sagem Morpho Inc. and Motorola's biometric division, Printrak, MorphoTrak’s markets include law enforcement, border control, civilentification, facility/IT security and access control. MorphoTrak and its global parent Sagem Sécurité - part of the Safran group - are leading innovators in large fingerprintentification systems, facial and iris recognition, as well asentification licenses. MorphoTrak employs over 450 persons in the U.S., with headquarters near Washington D.C., major corporate facilities in Anaheim, CA and Tacoma, WA, and regional facilities throughout the U.S. For more information, please visit www.morphotrak.com or call 1.800.601.6790
About Michigan State University Michigan State University has been advancing knowledge and transforming lives through innovative teaching, research and outreach for more than 150 years. MSU is known internationally as a major public university with global reach and extraordinary impact. Its 17 degree-granting colleges attract scholars worldwide who are interested in combining education with practical problem solving. For more information, please visit www.msu.edu
For more information, contact Eve Fillon - MorphoTrak Phone: 703.797.2666 Email: eve.fillon@morphotrak.com
Laura Seeley - Michigan StateUniversity Phone: 517.432-1303 Email: lseeley@egr.msu.edu