Electronic palatal rugae impression: a potentially relevant technology in personal identification

Abstract

Forensic medicine is now able to identify people through lots of different systems. Actually, fingerprints identification is the most
used identification method. To avoid identifying, many people alter or erase their fingerprints through chemical and / or abrasive
systems. The study of palatal rugae (palatoscopy) is an identification technique today accepted by the international scientific
community as an alternative, safe and effective identification system, because of their characteristic feature of immutability and
individuality. Currently, the most used procedure is dental impression through plaster casts or photographs. The difficulties in the
recording and cast’s storage limited the use of this identification system in comparison with others techniques. In order to improve
the palatal rugae analysis system, we designed a software, connected to a camera device that allows to acquire the palatal impression,
to easily identify the salient palatal features and to store them in a database. This would permit a fast, simple and economic
recognition method that could be used without the need of specific staff training and that could easily be integrated with the existing
fingerprint identification systems.