A Changing World and a Growing Challenge
Today, we are fortunate to be immersed in, or perhaps submerged by, technology that has created a global community both in terms of communications and information management but also through a complex and extensive network of transportation modes and routes. For forensic practitioners tasked with the responsibility of resolving missing persons cases and/or identifying those who have perished, this is both a blessing and a curse. Not too long ago, searching for missing persons or identifying the dead was typically resolved with localised enquiries and by relying on families being geographically present. Today, one’s point of origin and place of death can be literally on opposite sides of the world.
Medicolegal death investigations, mandated by law and guided by three key principles, namely scene, body, and history, require establishing identity and determining where, when, and how a person died under sudden, unnatural, or unexpected circumstances. These investigations not only ascertain facts but also help prevent future incidents by understanding the causes of death. Confirming identity clarifies the individual’s connection to the event. When conducted effectively, the insights gained from thorough investigations benefit society.
Administratively speaking, assigning a legal identity to a set of human remains often begins decades earlier with birth registration. Unregistered individuals who go missing or become unidentified are at a significant disadvantage, as they are excluded from official systems. Throughout life, various forms of identification create a record that aids forensic investigators if a person goes missing. Many countries today capture several forms of personal information in national population and other authority-managed databases, including fingerprints and, more recently, other biometric information. A constant tug-of-war exists between defending civil liberties and the privacy of citizens and the necessity of maintaining population data for various official and administrative purposes, such as issuing national identification, passports, and driver’s licenses. Forensic investigations increasingly rely on these large datasets and comparative software, especially in a mobile global community.
When Identity is lost
Failure to identify human remains can have severe consequences for surviving relatives seeking answers. Beyond the emotional toll of ambiguous loss, the lack of a death certificate and uncertainty can cause significant economic hardship, create administrative barriers to resolving estates and accessing benefits, and lead to stigma in some communities. These effects can persist for generations.
It wasn’t that long ago when unsolved investigations into the identity of human remains were closed when all reasonable efforts toward searching for and identifying the person exhausted existing resources and available scientific means. But recent successes, even in reopened complicated historical unidentified human remains cases, through the advent of additional forensic identification tools and technology, prove that all cases should always remain open in perpetuity to benefit from future methods and processes yet to be explored and validated in the rapidly evolving forensic science discipline. The use of AI to consolidate and analyse large datasets is a valuable advancement, but investigators (whether conducting post-mortem examinations or interviewing missing persons’ families) must understand both its potential and limitations, as well as the importance of accurate initial data collection. A systematic, holistic approach is needed, where all evidence is collected, analysed, standardised, and centralised to generate digital leads for further ‘human’ review. This is not a new concept, and authorities that have adopted this approach demonstrate the value of exploring many forensic identification methods and applications, not only improving the search capabilities but also responsibly applying various search filters and parameters to allow finite investigative resources to be managed more efficiently.
Building a Complete Identity
When approaching forensic identification, typically in large-scale or multiple-fatality incidents, INTERPOL promotes a Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) approach that categorises primary and secondary identifiers and explains how to apply them. Identification through primary identifiers, such as fingerprints, dental records, and DNA, is preferred due to their scientific reliability. Secondary identifiers, including distinctive features and personal effects, provide additional support to reach a level of confidence. However, forensic identification experts acknowledge that identification can never be 100% certain.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has provided humanitarian forensic action in well over 100 countries experiencing armed conflict, as well as supporting authorities responding to disasters and searching for missing and deceased migrants, where identification is often the most challenging. They promote an integrated approach that compares all available evidence, rather than relying on a single technique. This is promoted over the premise of relying solely on a single identification technique, such as DNA analysis. This approach enables investigators to establish similarities, identify potential discrepancies between datasets, and determine whether any unexplained discrepancies warrant exclusion. In criminal cases, the reliability and confidence in the processes presented to establish the identity of an alleged perpetrator can be challenged through cross-examination; in humanitarian forensic identification casework, achieving a high level of confidence requires adherence to international best practices, accreditation standards, and peer review. Collecting and analysing multiple lines of evidence allows for independent expert opinions to converge, strengthening scientific identification. Establishing identification of deceased relatives for families also requires linking the identification process to spatial, temporal, and circumstantial information. Not all comparisons will lead to identification or exclusion. An absence of sufficient, forensically relevant information, or poorly collected information for a missing person or set of human remains may prevent or compromise the comparison of datasets. Additionally, some missing persons may never be reported and/or human remains recovered, leaving an absence in comparable information.
Trust, Collaboration and Community
Both open and closed population events present unique investigative challenges. Still, all require scientific rigor and a robust medicolegal system that encourages collaboration among authorities, civil society, and non-governmental organisations without bias. This is especially important where relationships between authorities and communities are strained, and intermediaries or alternative reporting mechanisms are needed to gather information from vulnerable individuals. Access to provide information depends not only on authorities being available but also on community members feeling safe to come forward. Updated legislation and policies are essential to allow authorities to use forensic advancements effectively, ensuring evidence is collected and analysed according to scientific standards while complying with data protection laws. International best practices guide the application and weighting of forensic evidence and help prevent errors that could lead to misidentification, further harm to families, and loss of public trust.
A Shared Responsibility
The process of forensic identification that is reliable for administrative and legal purposes, supports criminal investigations and humanitarian casework, and is accepted by families and the community must be transparent, open to peer review, and adaptable when changes are needed. Furthermore, while the mandate to establish identity will rest with a particular authority, an integrated forensic identification process flourishes in a culture devoid of institutional “ownership” over cases. It requires a multi-agency, multidisciplinary approach, with investigators, subject matter experts, communities, and families of the missing and dead all contributing collectively. No single entity should dominate or exclude others. A culture needs to become ingrained in organisations during routine medicolegal casework that obligates mutualism between authorities and communities to resolve cases of missing persons and unidentified remains.
Looking forward
The world has become an interconnected global community, requiring authorities and supporting entities to adopt emerging technologies that complement human expertise to find missing persons and identify human remains, regardless of origin or place of death. Engaging families of missing persons in the search process through forensic tools, such as traditional and cultural scarification practices or forensic stable isotope analysis, adds valuable geographic parameters to searches and encourages families to participate in the identification process.
Transnational investigations and enquiries can also benefit from investigative search tools such as INTERPOL’s i-familiaglobal database to compare DNA profiles of missing persons and their biological relatives against those of unidentified human remains submitted by authorities from countries across the world, preventing international boundaries from hindering relief for families.
Establishing a positive identification often marks the beginning of understanding the decedent’s life, death, and the impact on their community. Resolving missing persons cases through identification should be a societal priority, supported by political commitment, resources, and recognition of every person’s right to have their identity preserved in death. Families deserve to be informed of their loved ones’ fate and whereabouts.
