In new technology that was developed as part of a research experiment, scientists have developed a system that will allow for intelligent dental identification. Starting with Bertillon in the 19th Century with anthropometry, forensic scientists have worked to develop a procedure in which personal identification would be made easy and reliable.

     While anthropometry was trusted for a number of decades, the advent of the fingerprint as a method of identification far surpassed body measurement, due to its ease and increased accuracy.

     Today, while we still use fingerprints as the most reliable and trust worthy way to individualize a victim and body, sometimes fingerprints cannot be used. Those victims that have been buried for long amounts of time, or are found just as skeletons cannot be identified using their skin (which has already been destroyed) and therefore needs a different method.

     The intelligent dental identification system as developed and tested in Thailand has exciting promise to give identification to victims that have long been buried or with destroyed bodies. Teeth, being one of the most resilient parts of the human body have the ability to last for decades, being buried or stored without becoming destroyed. This useful information has allowed scientists to collect dental records into a computer system that is able to recognize, identify and compare unknown teeth to already established dental records.

     This new technology is extremely important and I personally think that there is much potential in this new identification system. While fingerprinting has worked for a long time, and will continue to remain a vital new, we must work to pursue new avenues of identification, to allow us to identify those victims that would previously have been indistinguishable.

     This technology has the ability to bring dead people to life in a computerized system that appears to be extremely accurate, relatively easy to use, and practical in its purposes and goals. The processing features, details, accuracy, and trustworthiness of this new system is mind shattering, and I am confident that this is the first of many new technologies that will bring the science of forensic deontology into the 21st century. Instead of doing individual hand by hand observations and comparisons of dental records and teeth found, the computerized system will eliminate much of the time required to identify teeth, and will allow for the comparison against an entire database, versus just an individual suspect.

     This new technology is extremely promising and exciting. It offers the promise to transform our current technology in the field of forensic science. While it will certainly take time for this new technology to become part of the ‘regular’ tools of forensic scientists, given the proper amount of time, I guarantee that the Intelligent Dental Identification System will become extremely important and useful. The success displayed in this experiment gives me confidence that this new technology is destined for success.