This is 1 of those questions that will either be interpreted as deep or idiotic. :rolleyes:
When applying for a federal job, Army, or a gun permit, you get fingerprinted. When you get arrested, same thing. There will be cases where there’s a body with no obvious i.d., that’d normally be fingerprinted. But let’s say there are no hands: a bombing, where they’re blown off; predators in the woods have eaten a lost hiker’s hands; a shark attack; a chemical accident, which has erased the prints. Or, as I’ve heard some criminals do, they burn or file them off. Also when babies were born at least at the time I was, they took the kid’s footprint, I guess to identify who belongs to which parents in case of a mixup. But what about toeprints? Do toes have easily identifiable prints, like our fingers do? DO they correspond to the fingers (for example, the prints from thumb on the right hand are exactly identical to those of the big toe, the pointer finger exactly like the 2nd toe, an so on)? It probly ain’t that common that a corpse’s hands will be gone, but it does happen, so I’m wondering if toeprints could identify as reliably as fingerprints do. Just recently, some1 brought up the recent phenomenon of many feet washing up on the West Coast (in sneakers), and of course they have no idea whose body they’re from. I dunno what condition the toes were in, but in general, would having toeprints on file be any help to identify otherwise unidentifiable bodies?
Previous thread on subject. Yes, toe prints are as unique as fingerprints
The problem is that people leave an awful lot of fingerprints at scenes of crimes, etc. Fingerprints are valuable and have solved a lot of crmes hat might not have been solved otherwise. The occasions where a toe-print is the only ID process available are very few; especially where it’s a crime or something where determining the identity is urgent. Thus, not worth the effort.
Don’t say that. I have met an art forger (and major arsehole), who had specialised in Miró (I think it was). He was identified because he had placed a footprint on a painting imitating the artist’s style.
FWIW, when the military is about to put you in harm’s way, you file an Isolated Person Report which contains personal information including distinguishing tattoos, scars, and birthmarks. It’s so that if you’re alive, they can have specific questions to ask for proof of life, and if you’re dead, they can identify your mutilated corpse.