OSAC FRS Verification Document

[4n6Dave]

In section 3.9 of the verification document it says

3.9. Verification: Confirmation, through either re-examination or review of documented data
by another examiner, that a conclusion or opinion conforms to specified requirements
and is reproducible. NOTE: “Specified requirements” are the FSP’s policies and
procedures relating to Analysis, Comparison and Evaluation of friction ridge
impressions.

The part I had a question about is "review of documented data." Is this implying that you can conduct a verification based on the other examiners charts? I would think that would make it less of an independent re-examination and more of a consult or tech review of their data.

Does any agency allow the use of the original examiner's charts during the verification phase?

I have always thought that you should do your verification without looking at the original examiners charts then during the tech review part you look at them to see if they are accurate and follow your agencies procedures.

[josher89]

This document talks about the various types of verification, including blind verification and open (routine) verification. I think that most would agree that in many situations, blind verification isn't necessary to demonstrate accuracy and reliability. At least there's not a lot of research out there that suggests it catches more errors (for those that have it, please link or post the research). This document does spell out when blind verifications should be utilized and gives guidance on when it's 'okay' to use open verifications.

4.6.2 talks about conducting an independent reapplication of ACE but what it meant is that you're not doing the ACE as a tag-team (as this would involve what some consider a significant interaction and one shouldn't serve as the verifier to the other); having access to the original markups is sometimes beneficial for open verifications. I have always tried to invalidate the original conclusion but looking for the differences - the whole "hypothesis, null hypothesis, try to prove the null and if you can't, then accept the hypothesis" thing.

And that's why the document also spells out when the FSP should have a policy on how to decide what to use. If your agency decides to do blind verifications or follow a sequential unmasking policy for open verifications, do it! That's the beauty of this document--the FSP gets to decide how to implement the best practices.