The Anaheim, Calif.-based biometric technology company MorphoTrak announced that its tattoo recognition algorithm placed first in the Tattoo Recognition Technology – Challenge (Tatt-C) evaluation conducted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Each trial in the challenge examined a critical aspect of performance for an automated tattoo recognition solution. In the identification trials, the MorphoTrak algorithm successfully found different instances of the same tattoo on the same subject over time. MorphoTrak, a U.S. subsidiary of the French security firm Morpho, also excelled at finding small areas of interest within larger tattoos, as well as determining whether an image contained a tattoo.

Tattoo images – traditionally regarded as soft biometric, visual information used to narrow down individuals for identification and investigation purposes – cannot explicitly identify an individual. Law enforcement organizations collect tattoo images along with mug shots, and while mug shots are searchable using facial recognition algorithms, tattoos must be searched by general categories such as "dragon" and "skull."