Fingerprint-Based Gender Classification

Gender classification from fingerprints is an important step in forensic anthropology in order to identify the gender of a criminal and minimize the list of suspects search. A dataset of 10-fingerprint images for 2200 persons of different ages and gender (1100 males and 1100 females) was analyzed. Features extracted were; ridge count, ridge thickness to valley thickness ratio (RTVTR), white lines count, ridge count asymmetry, and pattern type concordance. Fuzzy CMeans (FCM), Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA), and Neural Network (NN) were used for the classification using the most dominant features. We obtained results of 80.39%, 86.5%, and 88.5% using FCM, LDA, and NN, respectively. Results of this analysis make this method a prime candidate to utilize in forensic anthropology for gender classification in order to minimize the suspects search list by getting a likelihood value for the criminal gender.