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Abstract

The present invention relates to a method for verifying the identity of a person or for relating the identity of a person to a document or other thing presented by that person, which method comprises: a). Observing topographically related permanent natural physical characteristics on a person to provide a machine readable identification of the identity, relative orientation and relative location of a plurality of the observed characteristics; and b). Comparing the observed characteristics with a machine readable record of the identification of the identity, relative orientation and relative location of the corresponding topographically related permanent natural physical characteristics purporting to belong to that person; c) Establishing the existence or otherwise of substantial identity between a plurality of the characteristics held in the record and those observed, the establishment of identity being based upon the identification, relative orientation and relative position of at least some of the characteristics; characterised in that the establishment of identity also includes: i) selecting a first set of at least three of the characteristics, which may be the same or different, from the record and a second set of at least three of the characteristics, which may be the same or different, from the observed characteristics; ii) counting the numbers of some other permanent natural physical feature lying between each of the characteristics with respect to each and every other member of that set for each of the first and second sets; and iii) comparing the counts for each and every characteristic in a set with the corresponding counts for the other set to substantiate identity between the two sets.

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First Claim