Journal of Ubiquitous Computing and Communication Technologies (ISSN: 2582-337X)

www.irojournals.com/jucct/

A Study on Brain Fingerprinting

Technology
S. Deepika1, B. Kaviyadharshini2, S. Sharmila3, S. N. Sangeethaa4,
S. Jothimani5
1-3
UG Scholar, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Bannari Amman Institute of
Technology, Erode, India
4,5
Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Bannari Amman Institute of
Technology, Erode, India
E-mail: 1deepika.cs20@bitsathy.ac.in, 2kaviyadharshini.cs20@bitsathy.ac.in, 3sharmila.cs20@bitsathy.ac.in, 4sangeethaasn
@bitsathy.ac.in, 5jothimanis@bitsathy.ac.in

Abstract

The detection and resolution of any crime is made possible with the use of modern
technology. The crime is discovered, the suspect is named, and then the court is presented
with sufficient proof to show that the crime was committed by the named suspect. The proofs
could be mental or physical. The best lie detector now in existence, according to this
invention, is reported to be able to catch even sneaky crooks who successfully pass the
standard polygraph test. Criminal investigators gather physical evidence, which can be
destroyed, while mental evidence is preserved in the brain and cannot be erased. The brain
wave reaction of an individual to crime-related images or phrases displayed on a computer
screen can be used to analyze those evidences, using Electroencephalography (EEG). This
novel Brain Fingerprinting technique uses brainwaves, which can be used to determine if the
test participant remembers the specifics of the incident. The brain wave issuer will trap him
even if they are consciously hiding the required information. Over 120 studies, including
testing on Federal agents, testing for the United States intelligence agency and the US Navy,
tests on actual cases, including felony crimes, have demonstrated that brain fingerprinting is
100 percent accurate.

Keywords: Brain fingerprint technology, electroencephalography (EEG), crime, brain wave

response

1. Introduction

A novel computer-based technique called "Brain fingerprinting," also known as

"Brain Electrical Oscillation Signature Profiling" (BEOSP), is used to identify a criminal by

Journal of Ubiquitous Computing and Communication Technologies, September 2022, Volume 4, Issue 3, Pages 125-137 125
DOI: https://doi.org/10.36548/jucct.2022.3.001
Received: 05.07.2022, received in revised form: 30.07.2022, accepted: 14.08.2022, published: 24.08.2022
© 2022 Inventive Research Organization. This is an open access article under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial International (CC BY-NC 4.0) License
A STUDY ON BRAIN FINGERPRINTING TECHNOLOGY

observing their brain's response to images or words associated with the crime [1]. This
cutting-edge technique is used to solve crimes, identify juvenile offenders, and prove a
criminal's innocence with 100% accuracy. Dr. Lawrence A. Farwell created this technology
in 1995.As of August 21, 2004, the word "100% accurate" on Farwell's websites suggested
that the method has flawless accuracy [3]. In peer-reviewed articles, Farwell and co-workers
claimed that their laboratory studies (Farwell and Donchin, 1991; Farwell and Richardson,
2006b) and field applications (Farwell and Smith, 2001; Farwell and Richardson, 2006a)
have above 99 percent accuracy [2]. William Iacono and others who used the same or related
scientific procedures have reported a similarly high level of accuracy in independent study.
Figure 1 shows the model of Brain Fingerprinting Technology.

Figure 1. Brain fingerprinting technology

In a court case in 1999, Farwell applied this strategy to establish the innocence of a
suspect. He showed each participant a photo of the crime site and then analysed their brain
waves to discover who had previously witnessed the event. He persuaded the judge to grant
the convicted person's parole by arguing that the test was 99.99 percent accurate [4]. The
technique is used in circumstances when investigators have access to enough particular
information about an incident or behaviour, that would be known only to the culprit and
investigator.

This makes brain fingerprinting a form of guilty knowledge test, where the "guilty"
participant is anticipated to have strong emotional responses to the pertinent information
about the incident or activity. While the current (polygraph) methods determines whether a
suspect is guilty by measuring autonomic arousal (such as heart rate and palm perspiration),
brain fingerprinting uses a fitted headband with specialised sensors to capture electrical brain
activity[2]. The claim that brain fingerprinting is more effective than traditional polygraph
methods in identifying "guilty" knowledge is widely contested by experts and has drawn
criticism on a number of fronts.

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2. Brain Fingerprinting

In a criminal case, evidences gathered through investigations are used to pinpoint the
specifics of the crime that a perpetrator would have to have come across during the
commission of the crime and that the brain records and remembers. In a typical crime scene
investigation, some crime details are unimportant, but they become crucial information in a
brain fingerprinting test [5]. These consist of details that a criminal might recall doing or
seeing while committing a crime, such as tipping over a pink flamingo on the lawn, rushing
through long grass, the sort of weapon used, etc. Once a sizable number of memorable details
are obtained, they are sorted into those that would be known to the public (via newspaper
coverage, etc.) and those would only be known to the police investigators and the criminal.
By using this data, the actual Brain Fingerprinting test, which consists of targets, probes, and
unrelated stimuli can be created. In the process of measuring the brain wave patterns
associated with visuals that are both important and irrelevant to the crime scene, brain
fingerprinting technology shows relevant and irrelevant images. Figure 2 shows block
diagram of Brain finger technology.

EEG Data
Acquisition

Feedback

Feature Signal
Classification
Extraction Processing

Figure 2. Architecture diagram of brain finger technology

Figure 3. Digital EEP signal technique

The recollections are sparked by the pertinent imagery. This method is based on the
discovery that when a person encounters a familiar environment, their brain produces a

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distinctive wave pattern. The features of a crime that are retained in a suspect's brain are
described using Electroencephalography (EEG) [6]. The Memory and Encoding Related
Multifaceted Electroencephalographic Response (MERMER) is a wavelike reaction that the
brain extorts when it encounters something familiar [7]. Figure 3 shows an example of
Digital electroencephalography signal technique. The P300 brain response is then contained
in the MERMER. Figure 4 shows an element of ERP, or an Event Related Brain Potential,
P300.

Figure 4. Graph for P300 response

A positive voltage that peaks 300ms after the occurrence of the consequential event is
the P300 signal. It is sufficient to show that the person in question is aware of that specific
occurrence by looking at the time domain plot of this P300 signal. The P300-MERMER
signal is investigated to support the notion even more. A negative peak known as late
negative potential follows the P300's positive peak [8]. P300-MERMER is the name of this
pair of potentials combined. Despite having additional capabilities in addition to the
straightforward time domain patterns, the P300 & P300 MERMER are not required for
defining response.

3. Methodology

A series of words, sounds, or images are presented to the person taking the Guilty
Knowledge Test via computer, one at a time for a limited amount of time. Each of these
stimuli is labelled as a "Target," "Irrelevant," or "Probe" by the test-giver. The target stimuli
are chosen to be significant information to the subject being evaluated in order to generate a
baseline brain response. To react to targets, the subject must press one button, and to react to
all other inputs, a different button. The bulk of non-target stimuli are irrelevant, that is, they
have no bearing on the situation that the participant is testing. In this case, unrelated stimuli
do not trigger a MERMER in order to create a baseline neural responses for data that is

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unrelated to the patient. Figure 5 and Figure 6 shows the Parietal area and Frontal area
responses.

Figure 5. Parietal area response [3]

Figure 6. Frontal area response [3]

Some of the non-target is relevant to the situation the test subject is facing. These
stimuli, sometimes referred to as Probes, are significant to the test subject and pertinent to the
probes. They will trigger a MERMER response from the patient, showing that they have
understood the meaning of the stimuli. In an individual whose brain lacks this knowledge, the
response to the Probe stimulus will be the same as the response to the irrelevant stimulus.
This response do not elicit a MERMER, indicating that the respondent was unable to recall
the information. Due to the fact that the test only considers differences in recognition
reactions to the stimuli, it is related to the Oddball effect [9]. It should be highlighted that no
kind of emotional reaction to the stimulus is necessary.

Probe Stimuli: The probing test is used to determine whether a subject is knowledgeable
about the problem being probed or not [10]. Thus, the investigations are always connected to
the crime site. The probe's features are:

 1st feature: Contains information about the crime learned by the perpetrator.

 2nd feature: Contains information relevant to the crime scene but not known to
the subject.

 3rd feature: Contains information that the subject refuses to acknowledge

Irrelevant Stimuli: This stimulus presents accurate information that is credible. It compares
the material from the investigation and determines if the subject has the necessary

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understanding of the offence [11]. Therefore, it may be determined whether or not the subject
lacks the necessary information by comparing these two responses to irrelevant stimuli and
probe stimuli.

Target Stimuli: It gives the probe stimulus and the reference signal waveform for
comparison. Target stimuli includes information the subject is aware of, that is pertinent to
the circumstance. Information that is revealed to the individual after the crime or other
scenario under investigation is contained in the target stimuli [12].

4. Scientific Procedure

Each stimulus is displayed for a brief period of time. Typically, a picture is displayed
for 1800 milliseconds whereas a word or phrase is displayed for a lesser time. Once the non-
invasive electrodes are attached to the subject's scalp, a computer-controlled video monitor
displays a series of words or images. To obtain the reference waveform, the patient is first
presented the target and unrelated stimuli. The participant is then given probe stimuli, which
causes the brain to produce a P300-MERMER response. As a result, the individual is exposed
to numerous such stimuli, and the resulting data is subsequently analysed.

Figure 7. Not guilty [4]

Figure 8. Guilty [4]

The probe, target, and irrelevant waveforms are compared for each iteration. Target
stimuli have a red waveform, irrelevant stimuli have a green waveform, and probe stimuli
have a blue waveform [4]. As seen in the figures 7 and 8, the blue line and green line are

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strongly associated whether the suspect is not guilty or if he lacks the necessary information.
The probe and unrelated stimuli have a strong correlation that demonstrates the suspect's
innocence. When the blue and red lines nearly coincide, this establishes a connection between
the probe and target stimuli and the guilty status of the suspect.

The following guidelines determine whether the person is guilty or innocent:

Not Guilty: According to figure 7, a person is not guilty when the blue and green lines
closely coincide.

Guilty: Based on the figure 8, guilt is present when the lines in blue and red are correlated.

5. Phases of Brain Fingerprint

The evidence gathered from the crime scene is maintained during DNA fingerprinting
and compared to the evidence on the suspect. Similar principles govern the operation of brain
fingerprint technology [12], but the evidence is informational rather than tangible.

The four stages of Farewell Brain Fingerprinting Technology are:

1. Collection of crime scene evidence via brain imaging

2. Using a brain print collection of brain evidence
3. Computer evidence analysis using brain fingerprinting
4. Scientific finding on brain fingerprinting.

Collection of crime scene evidence: It explains that the investigators go to the crime scene
and gather evidence of the crime. For further research, terms relating to crime must be
provided. When compared to many scientific studies, brain fingerprinting technology
provides courts with highly useful evidence.

Collection of brain evidence: Checking to see if the evidence matches the suspects after
submitting it for inquiry is helpful. EEG sensors are used in it [13]. It is an investigation of
the conflict between evidence from the suspect's brain and information about the crime scene.
If the information provided by the subject by the investigator does not match, then it is turned
to fingerprint matching. If the fingerprint doesn't match and the individual was at the crime
scene for some other reason, they will look into it for real.

Computer evidence analysis: Using complicated mathematics in the scheme and test of
brain waves, it is possible to determine whether the suspect is guilty or not by looking at the

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results. The input is obtained in the form of probes from the preceding processes. With a
combination of algebraic guarantees, the output determines if the information is present or
absent for these probe stimuli.

Scientific Analysis: Brain wave patterns will determine whether the information is present
based on the screen. Only scientific testing is what that leads to this conclusion. This method
effectively separates informational evidence obtained from the scene of the crime and from
the suspect from physical evidence. The specific information is based on the three coloured
lines.

RED: The suspect is simply anticipated becoming aware of the facts surrounding the incident.

GREEN: The suspect is uninformed about the details of the crime.

BLUE: The suspect just has knowledge of the crime's details.

The following figures 9 and 10 define whether the information is obtained on the
screen or not.

Figure 9. Information absent [4]

Figure 10. Information present [4]

6. MERMER Technology

MERMER technology involves the use of a customised headband that has extra
electronic sensors (electrodes) and generates waveforms on the EEG. Typically, two different
types of electrodes are used.

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 Invasive: (electrodes are attached directly to the brain tissue).

 Non-invasive: (electrodes are placed directly on the scalp).

A collection of unrelated stimuli, words, and images or relevant stimuli, words and
images are presented to the test subject. This approach employs a variety of irrelevant, target,
and probe stimuli. Everybody's brain contains the electrical signal P300, which is used by this
system. Once the culprit is located, it generates unique stimuli, once in every 300
milliseconds. The explanation verifies the P300's response to the queries about crime. The
weapons that the criminal employed are shown on the screen. It is independent of vocal
responses to stimuli by using EEG readings. The accuracy of brain fingerprinting technology
is independent of the subject's emotional state. Alpha, beta, delta, and theta waves are the
four waves that make up the EEG [14]. Figure 11 represents the types of brain waves.

Alpha waves: Normal occurrence of alpha waves includes deep relaxation, imaginative
states, and intuitive thought. It oscillates between 8 and 12 Hz.

Beta waves: Only when a person is active, beta waves appear. It has a frequency range of 12
Hz and higher.

Theta waves: Theta waves appear when people are emotionally stressed, disappointed,
daydreaming, or sleepy, for example. 4 to 8 Hz is the range of its frequencies.

Delta waves: Deep sleep and extreme deep meditation both produce delta waves. Its
frequency is between 0.5 and 4Hz.

Figure 11. Types of brain waves

7. Evidence for Brain Fingerprinting

Dr. Farwell has a patented system of analysis for EEG P300 lie detection called the
P300 MERMER [15]. According to Farwell, Brain Fingerprinting is a valid and trustworthy
tool that assisted in the conviction of a serial killer and the release of an innocent man who

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had been wrongfully imprisoned for 22 years for murder (Farwell, Richardson, &
Richardson, 2013) [7]. According to Larry Farwell's website, the test revealed Grinder had
knowledge of the murder stored in his brain.

Before the Brain Fingerprinting test, Grinder admitted his guilt to the County Sheriff,
but the Sheriff demanded proof, according to Farwell's website [16] Grinder entered a guilty
plea and avoided the death penalty in exchange for a life sentence. In 2000, Terry Harrington,
who was serving a life sentence for murder and contesting the verdict, also had his brain
analysed[7]. According to the results of the Brain Fingerprinting test, Harrington had
knowledge unique to his alibi but not knowledge specific to the specifics of the crime. The
District Court recognised the P300 effect's legitimacy following a one-day hearing on the
admissibility of Brain Fingerprinting evidence. The Court, however, ruled that the evidence
was not convincing to give a fresh trial (Farwell & Makeig, 2005) [7].

Due to a Brady violation (prosecutors failing to disclose material that aids the
defence), Harrington was later granted a second trial, and the Supreme Court overturned the
District Court's ruling. Farwell asserts that after presenting the key prosecution witness with
the results of the Brain Fingerprinting study, the witness changed his testimony. Harrington's
conviction was overturned and he was released from prison as a result of the recanted
evidence (Farwell & Makeig, 2005).

Figure 12. Brain responses of information-present subjects [7]

In his discussion of the Harrington case, Farwell emphasises how the court recognised
the legitimacy of brain fingerprinting. However, the Court accepted the P300 MERMER
response rather than Farwell's particular technique of analysis (Farwell & Makeig, 2005) [7].
Farwell, Richardson, and Richardson (2013) conducted "real-life" research to address this
issue. These investigations covered both minor and severe crimes as well as job-specific
knowledge for FBI, CIA, and U.S. Navy employees.

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Perhaps the only researchers who test high-stakes lying with actual criminals
regarding actual crimes are Farwell, Richardson, and Richardson. Because Farwell evaluated
criminal suspects and informed them that if they passed the test, it may be used as supporting
evidence for them in court, their research had a high ecological validity [7]. Figure 12
represents the Brain responses of information-present subjects

He taught the participants countermeasures (such as thinking of something else when

presented with the irrelevant stimuli) that have been effectively used in prior P300 research to
demonstrate that the test could not be "beaten" (Farwell et al., 2013). In 2013, effectiveness
of countermeasures when using Brain Fingerprinting [7]. Their research revealed that the
countermeasures had no effect on Brain Fingerprinting.

8. Applications

 Test candidates for various positions, particularly those involving sensitive

military and foreign intelligence screening.

 To identify signs of neurological illnesses, Alzheimer's disease, mental

depression, and other types of dementia.

 Legal proceedings: Finding the criminal is an essential component of the legal

system. There was no clinically supported method of making a critical
distinction prior to the development of the science of brain fingerprinting[13].

 Advertisements: This technique aids in identifying whether a specific person

has information about a product concept stored in his memory.

 Antiterrorism: It is the most effective way to find terrorists who have directly
or indirectly engaged in terrorist activity. It aids in determining who has
leadership positions within the terrorist group. Additionally, it aids in locating
sleeper cells who been dormant for years.

9. Limitations

Brain fingerprinting cannot be applied to every case or to every suspect because there
are circumstances in which the detectives may not be aware of the crime scene when the
criminal vanishes from the view. Therefore, no interpretation could be reached. In some
circumstances, the offender may assert that he was just an eyewitness present at the crime

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scene. So, in this instance, although the person is fully aware of the crime scene, they did not
commit the crime. As a result, no data can be interpreted.

10. Comparison with Other Technologies

Physical evidence from a crime scene is matched with evidence on the perpetrator's
person using DNA and conventional fingerprinting. Brain fingerprinting works in a similar
way by comparing informational evidence from the crime scene with material that is stored in
the brain. Only 1% of crimes have available fingerprints and DNA. The suspect's activities
are always being planned, carried out, and recorded by the suspect's brain [14]. Brain
fingerprinting is not a tool for detecting lies. Instead, it is a methodical approach to
determining if a specific crime or other conduct has been committed. Neither inquiries nor
responses are made during the Farwell Brain Fingerprinting process. The outcomes are the
same whether the person has lied or stated the truth at any moment, just like with DNA and
fingerprints.

11. Conclusion

With a track record of 100% accuracy in studies with US government agencies, actual
criminal cases, and other uses, brain fingerprinting is a cutting-edge new scientific tool for
solving crimes, identifying criminals, and exonerating innocent individuals. The technology
satisfies a critical requirement for governments, law enforcement organisations, businesses,
investigators, crime victims, and people who have been wrongfully accused but are innocent.
Due to the research's limited sample size, it would not be suitable to generalise its findings.
However, the 100 percent accuracy and high level of confidence results offer additional
support for findings from earlier studies that used brain MERMER testing.

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