Racial and gender discrimination using lip size and morphology among the malay and indian population in Malaysia

Establishing a suspect's gender and social traits could be very beneficial in the course of a crime scene investigation, primarily because in conjunction with other circumstantial evidences they could be useful in identifying suspects. Lip print and morphological analysis and their uniqueness have been previously validated as they fall in the same category of biometric patterns. The aim of this research is to evaluate the gender and racial discriminatory ability of lip vermillion size and shape among Malaysian Malay and Indian population. A total of 148 participants have been recruited for this study, high resolution lip images acquired and analyzed by using a systematic classification of the oral fissure, upper and lower vermillion borders. Results showed that there were marked differences in the lip height among Malay and Indian males population, whereby Malay male (6.17±0.933cm) exhibited fuller lips than their Indian (5.55±0.646cm) counterpart [t(70)=2.952, p=0.004]. Significant sexual dimorphism was noted in the upper vermillion border types. Gender and racial correlation to lip morphology may help to narrow down suspect population by just using lip images.