Fingers, Faces and Phonies: How to Identify a Human Being

Thursday Colloquium

#ThursdayColloquium by Massimo Leone

The need for identification is fundamental to any society and becomes particularly crucial in the realm of law enforcement. Throughout the history of crime, a dynamic interplay has unfolded between attempts to obscure, alter, or fabricate identities and society’s relentless efforts to unveil and expose these deceptions. Semiotics, with its expertise in analyzing signs, provides a unique lens through which to study the mechanisms of detection and identification, particularly in forensic and criminological contexts.

Among all human attributes, the face has historically been ascribed the highest value in signifying personal identity. Yet, modern forensics has revealed the limitations of relying solely on the face, recognizing its potential to deceive. Inspired by practices from Eastern traditions in China, Japan, and India, forensic science shifted toward fingerprinting as a more reliable identifier. In the digital era, however, fingerprinting itself has been transformed: first digitized, and now increasingly overshadowed by facial recognition technologies.

The return of the face as a central identifier in AI-driven forensics is accompanied by complex sociocultural biases embedded in these systems. Semiotics plays a critical role in uncovering and understanding these hidden influences, shedding light on how they shape practices of identification and the ethical challenges they pose in a world where technology increasingly mediates human identity.

This event is addressed to HIAS Fellows and Tandem Partners.