U.K. introduces first-in-the-world shoeprint database
Forensic Science Service asks shoe manufacturers to provide sole impressions; more than 1,000 Nike trainers are enrolled already; Cinderella analysis guides police to the suspect
Here is a system that would put Sherlock Holmes out of business: Security officials at the U.K. Forensic Science Service have created the world’s first shoeprint database. The idea is to permit detectives quickly to identify — through a technique known as “Cinderalla analysis” — the brand and model of shoe worn by a burglar who ran off through a wet garden. Not suprisingly, perhaps, the system includes more than 1,000 models of Nike trainers, which are said to be the most popular among the criminally minded — but for style reasons, not because they are specially suited for robbery. The patterns themselves are supplied by the shoe manufacturers.
Cinderella analysis, however, requires more than just identifying the shoe. Detectives can not just arrest any person wearing the latest Lebron James; they must also match the shoeprint to the shoe itself. They do this by carefully examining the suspect shoe’s insole, which tends to be highly distinctive person-to-person. Even identical twins would not share an insole impression. One would not neccesarily even need the shoe itself. Suspects might be asked to walk barefooted across a sheet of paper with ink on their soles to create a walking footprint.
The quesion here is: Will we soon see a few models of Bruno Magli shoes added to the shoe-print data base?
-read more in Stewart Tendler’s London Times report
