A closer look at selected malaysian palm prints pattern

The use of palm prints as an alternative to fingerprints for positive human identifier has recently gained much interest in the forensic arena. Palm prints consist of general features such as principle lines, wrinkles and creases that can be used to charac terize an individual. In this study, 240 palm prints were randomly collected from normal and healthy individuals. Data analysis was affected using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) software. Differences in ridge flow characteristic among four different Malaysian populations; Malay, Chinese, Indian as well as natives of Sabah and Sarawak were observed. Correlation study was performed to obtain a relationship between right palm print patterns to left palm print pattern. The presence of characteri stic features such as vestige in thenar region, delta shift in hypothenar region and deltas in the interdigital region were found to be unaffected by the racial group of the individual. However, a good correlation of right palm print pattern to left palm p rint pattern was observed whereby the right hypothenar correlated well (r=0.93) to the left hypothenar as well as the right interdigital (r =1.00) to the left interdigital patterns. Based on the findings of this study, palm print can be used as an attracti ve identifying tool due to the uniqueness and distinctive pattern that differs from one person to another.