The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has reviewed the scientific foundations of bitemark analysis, a forensic technique in which marks on the skin of a biting victim are compared with the teeth of a suspected biter and found that the field is not supported by sufficient data. NIST has published its findings in a final report, Bitemark Analysis: A NIST Scientific Foundation Review,
The review “found a lack of support for three key premises of the field: 1) human dentition is unique at the individual level, 2) this uniqueness can be accurately transferred to human skin, and 3) identifying characteristics can be accurately captured and interpreted by analysis techniques.”