While security experts argue about whether fingerprints or retinal identification is the best way to verify a person’s identity, FBI scientists in the US have come up with a far more imaginative solution. Without realizing it, we are all walking bar codes with something on our bodies which makes us totally unique – our jeans. The Independent newspaper reported the strange case of a man caught with his trousers up – a bank robber confident that the video security camera would be useless in identifying him because he wore a mask. However, close examination of a enlarged video picture showed that the robber had a distinct pattern on his jeans. This is the result of the way that jeans are pushed through a sewing machine when the seams are stitched up and the raised patches are worn away creating white bands. No two pairs are ever made in the same way so each has a unique barcode on the side. When police found a suspect with jeans with an identical pattern, they knew they had their man. Though the defense introduced 34 other pairs of jeans into the case, the FBI was able to distinguish every one from those worn by the accused.
