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Interpol unveils new global database to identify missing persons through family dna.

LYON, France: In 2004, Croatian police found a man’s body in the Adriatic Sea.

The condition of the body, which rendered identification through fingerprints or facial recognition impossible, meant that – for more than a decade – it remained unidentified.

Enter I-Familia, a groundbreaking new database officially launched this month that applies cutting-edge scientific research and uses the DNA of relatives to identify missing persons or unidentified human remains around the world.

In late 2020, DNA from the children of an Italian man missing since 2004 was added to I-Familia and then checked against DNA from all unidentified human remains in the system.  

A match was found between the children’s DNA and that of the body found in the Adriatic Sea, closing a case that had gone cold 16 years earlier.

Global database for kinship matching

Family members’ DNA profiles can be compared to that of an unidentified body or human remains through what is known as DNA kinship matching. This method is often used when a direct sample from the missing person – from a prior medical sample or a personal item such as a toothbrush – is not available.

However, complex calculations are required to confirm a match because biological relatives share differing percentages of the DNA. This complexity is magnified when undertaken at the international level, due to the genetic variation among populations across the world.

I-Familia is the first global database to automatically control for such differences without requiring knowledge of the missing person’s genetic ancestry and provide standardized guidelines on what constitutes a match.

“Identifying missing persons globally has always been challenging, due to the lack of data exchange procedures combined with the scientific complexity of statistical interpretation,” said Dr Arnoud Kal, senior forensic scientist at the Netherlands Forensic Institute  – one of the world’s leading forensic laboratories.

“Therefore, we believe the development by INTERPOL of I-Familia opens up new opportunities for member countries that will positively impact the effectiveness of international missing person investigations”, Dr Kal added.

The missing, and the impact on their families

A countless number of individuals go missing globally each year due to crime, conflicts, accidents or natural disasters. By late 2020, over 12,000 active Yellow Notices – international police alerts for missing persons – had been issued by the INTERPOL General Secretariat.

For families facing the uncertainty of whether their loved ones are alive or dead, sometimes for many years, the emotional toll can be crushing. The absence of a death certificate can also have considerable administrative and financial implications.

“All countries have unsolved missing persons investigations as well as human remains that cannot be identified using their national systems alone,” said INTERPOL Secretary General Jürgen Stock.

“I-Familia is a humanitarian tool which, enabled by INTERPOL’s global reach, opens up vast new possibilities to identify missing persons and to provide families with answers,” added Secretary General Stock.

How I-Familia works

Building on INTERPOL’s long-standing success in direct DNA matching , DNA profiles are submitted by INTERPOL’s 194 member countries to make links between missing persons and cases related to human remains.

I-Familia is made up of three components:

• A dedicated global database to host the DNA profiles provided by relatives, held separately from any criminal data;
• The DNA matching software, called Bonaparte, developed by Dutch company Smart Research;
• Interpretation guidelines, produced by INTERPOL, to efficiently identify and report potential matches.

The Bonaparte technology uses advanced statistical algorithms to calculate the probability of a match compared against an interpretation table. This powerful software can perform millions of calculations in a short space of time. The result is then interpreted by forensic DNA experts at the INTERPOL General Secretariat.

Data protection

The processing of DNA data via INTERPOL is carried out via secure communications channels and in compliance with the Organization’s robust data protection rules as well as the INTERPOL policy on using family DNA profiles of missing persons for kinship matching.

Family members must give their consent for their data to be used for international searching. There is no nominal data attached to the profile, which is submitted in the form of an alphanumerical code.

In the event of a match, notifications are sent to the countries that supplied the DNA profile from the unidentified body and from the family respectively. Further checks (such as dental records and personal belongings) can then be carried out to confirm the potential match.

I-Familia was made possible thanks to the support of the NFI and Smart Research. For more information on I-Familia, visit the INTERPOL website: https://www.interpol.int/How-we-work/Forensics/I-Familia

Related news

International appeal to identify dead child in Germany

Operation Identify Me yields new information

International appeal seeks to identify 22 female murder victims.

INTERPOL General Assembly opened by Prime Minister Narendra Modi

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Article Contents

Introduction, materials and methods, results and discussion, conclusions, authors’ contributions, compliance with ethical standards, disclosure statement.

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A bibliometric analysis of research trends for missing persons globally and in East Asia from 2000 to 2021

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Zixuan Zeng, Ishmael Dikeledi, Yehui Lv, A bibliometric analysis of research trends for missing persons globally and in East Asia from 2000 to 2021, Forensic Sciences Research , Volume 9, Issue 1, March 2024, owad041, https://doi.org/10.1093/fsr/owad041

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A bibliometric analysis was performed to explore the current research status and development trends for missing persons globally and in East Asia and to identify research hotspots and frontiers relating to this topic. A search was conducted to identify relevant literature on missing persons using the Web of Science Core Collection database for the period 2000–2021. Subsequently, a knowledge map was constructed using CiteSpace software to perform a visual analysis of the distribution of authors and institutions, journals, and national/regional distribution; citation frequency; high-frequency keywords; and emerging research hotspots. The results showed firstly that discussions on missing persons and related topics in East Asia are held at the regional scale. There is a paucity of research on this topic, which has been conducted on a limited scale, lacks depth and possibly innovation, and entails limited discussion in this region. Secondly, there is a lack of social science research on missing persons and related topics worldwide. Thirdly, relevant research in East Asia should continue to preserve its own characteristics, effectively addressing current issues and enabling more people to participate in social science-oriented discussions focusing on the topic of missing persons. This approach provides a promising direction for pursuing the sustainable development of the topic of missing persons.

The strengths and weaknesses of current research on missing persons in East Asia were identified by comparing the respective literatures on missing persons and related topics in East Asia and worldwide during the period 2000–2021.

Bibliometric analysis was performed using CiteSpace visual charts to explore keywords, authorship and co-authorship, intercountry collaboration, and other relevant co-citationities.

Insights were obtained on current research breakthroughs relating to the topic of missing persons, and cutting-edge social science research on this topic was identified.

Issues relating to human remains and missing persons have received considerable attention within the global forensic anthropology literature along with technological innovations and widely discussed ethical issues relating to these topics. However, a preliminary bibliometric survey and analysis of the relevant literature published over a period of more than 20 years revealed that in East Asia (i.e. China, Japan, Korea, and Mongolia), discussions on this and related topics are limited. Natural disasters such as typhoons with strong winds, very heavy rainfall and storm surges as well as flooding (continuous heavy rainfall or short periods of heavy rainfall), droughts, cold waves, volcanic eruptions, and earthquakes occur relatively frequently in East Asia [ 1 ]. Moreover, there is a historical legacy of wars in this region. Consequently, the phenomenon of missing and unidentified persons in this region is not uncommon. Notwithstanding these issues, a gap remains in the research on this topic in East Asia.

A certain amount of cutting-edge research has been conducted on the identification of missing persons worldwide. Examples include the use of digital fingerprinting in disaster victim identification (DVI) settings [ 2 ] and massively parallel sequencing (MPS), which is used for highly variable regions of human mitochondrial DNA, identifying DNA from damaged biological samples [ 3 ], and for examining exhumed human remains, especially in areas where there is no evidence of human remains. Ground-penetrating radar [ 4 ] has also been used, especially in undocumented areas where human remains are buried. However, the findings of this study revealed a paucity of social science research on this topic within the literature despite its increasing importance within the social sciences, as evidenced by recent discussions in the social sciences [ 5–8 ]. Furthermore, very few analyses, evaluations, and summaries of research findings on issues relating to human remains and missing persons exist within the literature.

Bibliometric analysis is a widely used quantitative method for estimating relevant, previously conducted research activities, enabling the content of the literature to be analysed and new trends in a given field to be predicted. Bibliometrics has contributed to research trends in forensic science and legal medicine [ 9 , 10 ], such as forensic anthropology [ 11 ], forensic entomology [ 12 ], forensic genetics [ 13 ], and medical malpractice [ 10 ]. However, in the field of missing person or forensic humanitarian, to the best of our knowledge, this bibliometric analysis is the first attempt. The recommendations of this study are to conduct a systematic assessment of the research content, trends, and topical issues relating to human remains and missing persons from 2000 to 2021, with the aim of capturing patterns of collaboration between countries/regions, institutions, and authors and exploring future research directions in this field. Such an assessment would enable differences between East Asia and the world as a whole relating to the issue of human remains and missing persons to be identified and would provide a reference for continued research on this topic in East Asia.

Search strategy and data collection

For this retrospective study, data were obtained on 1 July 2022 from the Web of Science Core Collection (WOSCC) using the Science Citation Index Expanded and the following search formula:

(TS = (missing person) OR TS = (missing population) OR TI = (missing) OR TS = (missing people) OR TS = (disaster missing) OR TS = (missing disorder) OR TS = (missing conflict) OR TS = (migrant missing) OR TS = (disappearing population) OR TI = (disappearing person) OR TI = (vanishing population) OR TI = (surviving population) OR TS = (survivor) OR TS = (disaster victim identification) OR TS = (DVI) OR TS = (identification of victim) OR TS = (unidentified human) OR TS = (investigation on missing person) OR TS = (human remains) AND ( TI = (forensic or legal medicine) OR TS = (forensic * or legal medicine) OR AB = (forensic or legal medicine) OR AK = (forensic or legal medicine) OR KP = (forensic? or legal medicine)).

The terms were refined by excluding document types: (editorial material OR letter OR data paper OR book chapter OR proceedings paper OR retraction OR meeting abstract OR correction OR news item OR retracted publication), and languages (English).

The range of publication dates for articles included in the search was 1 January 2000 to 31 December 2021.

Data analysis

A total of 3 381 articles were searched worldwide, of which 238 focused on the East Asian region. The search results were downloaded in full in TXT format and subsequently exported to a Microsoft Excel 2019 (Redmond, USA) spreadsheet to analyse general statistics and to conduct a further analysis using CiteSpace 5.8.R3 ( https://citespace.podia.com/ ). The data were aggregated as secondary data in a public database.

An analysis of the numbers and types of papers, years of publication, journals, authors, institutions, countries and regions, funding bodies, numbers of citations, and the h -index was carried out using WOSCC’s results analysis tool. Temporal trends concerning the annual growth rate and relative growth rate over a certain interval within the literature were calculated using a Microsoft Excel 2019 spreadsheet. CiteSpace, which is a specialist software used for analysing and visualizing bibliometric networks, was applied in this study for the visual bibliometric analysis, which produced a map of keyword clusters, a timeline view of keywords, and a burst keywords map for relevant literature worldwide, with countries/regions, institutions, and authors. The above graphs were also produced for the East Asian region for comparison purposes. Accordingly, the CiteSpace parameters were as follows. For time slicing, the cutoff time point for the analysis, which covered the period 2000–2021, was 1 year. For selection criteria, the g-index was selected, and the scale factor was set at k  = 25 to highlight important literature. For the node types, authors, institutions, countries (regions), and keywords were selected for the visual analysis and generation of co-occurrence plots. The system’s default settings were used for the remaining parameters.

Number of documents and publication trends

Initially, 3 509 eligible documents were obtained and screened using the process shown in Figure 1 . Of these publications, 88 were written in languages other than English: 39 were in German (44.3%); 12 were in Spanish (13.6%); 11 were in French (12.5%); 4 each were in Russian (4.5%) and in unspecified languages (4.5%); 3 each were in Chinese (3.4%), Polish (3.4%), and Serbian (3.4%); 2 each were in Hungarian (2.2%), Portuguese (2.2%), and Turkish (2.2%); and 1 each were in Italian (1.1%), Korean (1.1%), and Slovene (1.1%) (Number are rounded so the proteges may not add to 100%). What is more, 40 were meeting abstract, editorial material, correction, book chapter, letter, news item, proceedings paper, or retraction. Ultimately, 3 381 eligible documents were obtained, of which 238 were from the East Asian region.

Screening process for studies included in this bibliometric research.

The global and East Asian literature were aggregated, and publication trends were plotted, as shown in Figure 2 . It can be seen that during the period 2000–2021, the literature on this topic showed a steady increasing trend both globally and in East Asia; it is similar to the results of some bibliometric studies in forensic science [ 10 , 13 ]. What is more, the increasing trend is more apparent in East Asia; this may reflect the significant development of research interest and scientific input in East Asian countries over the past two decades. These findings may indicate that there is still potential, but we should also recognize that compared with the world, there are still many shortcomings.

Trends in publication of missing persons worldwide (A) and in East Asia (B).

Citations in the literature in Figure 2A will be discussed later in the article.

Literature-producing countries/regions and literature-producing institutions

CiteSpace was used to generate network maps of national/regional and institutional literature, as shown in Figures 3 and 4 and Table 1 . It can be seen that on a global scale, the USA produced the largest body of research literature (29.8%). Within Europe, the UK produced the most literature (10.6%), followed by Italy (7.2%), Germany (6.1%), Spain (4.9%), France (3.5%), and Portugal (3.1%). Within Oceania, Australia (8.6%) produced the most literature after the USA and the UK. Within Asia, India (4.2%) was ranked in the eighth position in terms of its literature output. Thus, Australia and India were the only non-European and non-American countries to feature in the list of the top 10 countries in terms of their literature outputs. Of the East Asian countries, Japan (3.0%) had the most relevant literature, followed by China (2.9%), with these two countries together accounting for 84.0% of the literature published on human remains and missing persons within East Asia. The characteristics of research in East Asia were also influenced by the size of China’s population, which is the largest population globally (according to countrymeters, 2022-01-01) and by Japan’s vulnerable status as one of the most natural disaster-prone countries in the world [ 1 ]. Figure 4 shows that the institutions currently publishing literature on the topic under investigation are mainly located in Europe and the USA, with these institutions connected by complex common threads, indicating close collaborations among mainstream institutions. The most prominent East Asian institutions including Institute of Forensic Science (now renamed as Academy of Forensic Science), Ministry of Justice, PRC, Sichuan University and Josai University. However, only a few collaborative common threads were evident, as this institution only works with a limited number of other institutions, almost all of which are Chinese institutions. This example is illustrative of the collaborative activities of most East Asian institutions as well as the nature of their collaboration, which is localized and with single institutions.

Network maps of national and regional sites of literature production worldwide (A) and in East Asia (B).

Network maps of institutional sites of literature production worldwide (A) and in East Asia (B).

Ranking of countries and institutions that published articles worldwide and in East Asia (Top 10)

* Now renamed Academy of Forensic Science.

Tables 2 and 3 present statistics on the top 10 journals published globally and in East Asia, respectively. It shows that the following journals featured among the top 10 publications both at the global level and in East Asia: Forensic Science International , Journal of Forensic Sciences , International Journal of Legal Medicine , Forensic Science International: Genetics , Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine , and Legal Medicine. Other journals included among the top 10 journals at the global level were Science & Justice, American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology, Forensic Science Medicine and Pathology and Australian Journal of Forensic Sciences . Forensic Science International and Forensic Science International: Genetics occupied the same positions in both tables for the global and East Asian publications (1 and 4, respectively). American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology and Australian Journal of Forensic Sciences were probably in the top 10 list because of the high number of studies on missing persons in the USA and Australia (first in the USA and third in Australia), which is one of the reasons for the high rank of the two magazines. The h -index values for Romanian Journal of Legal Medicine and Forensic Science Research , which are among the top 10 journals in East Asia in terms of number of publications, were 44 and 23, respectively. These values for the two journals were ranked 13 and 14, respectively, among the 14 journals listed in the two tables, indicating a possible lack of innovativeness of some of the relevant literature in East Asia.

Top 10 journals promoting scientific research on missing persons globally (Total N  = 3 381)

Top 10 journals promoting scientific research on missing persons in East Asia (Total N  = 238)

Co-citation journal maps were produced using CiteSpace, as shown in Figure 5 . There was a high degree of similarity in the cited literature between East Asian and world literature. This result may also reflect the fact that current discussions on this topic primarily feature in three journals: Journal of Forensic Sciences , Forensic Science International , and International Journal of Legal Medicine .

Co-citation journal maps worldwide (A) and in East Asia (B).

Collaborations and funds

Co-citation maps of collaborations among authors were also produced using CiteSpace, as shown in Figure 6 . Evidently, there are deeper collaborations between authors worldwide, with collaboration co-citationities in East Asia being much thinner in comparison. This difference may be attributable to the distinct cultural characteristics of the East Asian region, which also account for linguistic and other differences between authors from countries (regions) in East Asia and other countries (regions). Furthermore, geographical and climatic differences should also be considered.

Network map of active authors contributing to missing persons worldwide (A) and in East Asia (B).

Statistics on the relevant global and East Asian funding bodies are shown in Tables 4 and 5 . The tables show that two of the top 10 funding agencies, namely, the National Natural Science Foundation of China (1.6%) and the Ministry of Education, Culture Sports Science and Technology in Japan (0.9%), are from the East Asian region. This finding reveals a certain level of interest in the topic of missing persons in East Asia and some willingness to fund efforts to address this issue. Within East Asia, five of the top 10 grant-making agencies are located in China and three are located in Japan. This statistic shows that Japan and China provide the most support for research on this topic within East Asia, while producing the most relevant literature in this region.

Top 10 funding agencies globally (Total funded paper: N  = 3 381)

Top 10 funding agencies in East Asia (Total funded paper: N  = 238)

Keywords in the literature

CiteSpace was used to create keyword cluster maps for the global and East Asian literatures, respectively, as depicted in Figure 7 . The figure shows that mainstream voices are currently focused on issues relating to the identification of human remains. For example, high-tech means are used to identify DNA and RNA of human remains and hence to obtain identity-related information at the global and East Asian scales. Studies have also been conducted to identify skeletal remains from various types of bones [ 14–16 ], focusing on the role of bones, such as skulls and teeth, as important identifiers. This information is used along with the identification of personal information such as the sex [ 17 ], age [ 18 ], and race [ 19 ] of the deceased, which further enhances the accuracy of the identification of the remains. The keywords in the East Asian literature reveal a high degree of similarity to those used worldwide, but because of the special circumstances of the East Asian region [ 1 ], the categories of mass catastrophe and MPS were included in the clustering of keywords in the East Asian literature [ 20–25 ], which is one of the distinct features of the East Asian research on human remains and missing persons. However, it is clear from these charts that a social science perspective is missing in the research on human remains and missing persons both worldwide and in East Asia, with only one relevant cluster, namely, “sexual assault” featuring among the keywords.

Maps of keyword clusters worldwide (A) and in East Asia (B).

CiteSpace was used to create a timeline view of the keywords in the global and East Asian literature, as shown in Figure 8 . The timeline view provided a sketch of the relationships between clusters and the historical span of the literature in a given cluster [ 26 ]. The denser concentration of hot terms in the global map of keyword timeline clustering attests to the depth and breadth of research on the topic of human remains and missing persons worldwide. At the global scale, throughout the period 2000–2021, topics from the disciplines of forensic anthropology and forensic entomology were hot research topics in this field, entailing explorations of various topics relating to the identification of human remains. The “rape” cluster also appears in the map, represented by several studies in the humanities and social sciences that have explored the impacts of sexual assault, on female victims [ 27–29 ], rapists’ and victims’ psychological profiles [ 30 ], and adolescent victims and perpetrators [ 31 , 32 ]. In addition, a number of studies have focused on the identification of rape victims’ remains [ 33 ]. Comparing the timeline views of keywords in the global and East Asian literature, it is apparent that East Asian research reached a certain scale significantly later than research at the global level. Moreover, the scale of research in East Asia has been relatively limited, with studies focusing more on MPS [ 23–25 ] and East Asian ethnic identification [ 24 , 34 , 35 ].

Timeline view of keywords analysis worldwide (A) and in East Asia (B).

Figure 9 , which depicts burst keywords in the global and East Asian literature, was produced using CiteSpace (“Strength” indicates the degree of prominence, with higher levels representing more prominent discussion at a given time.). Burst keywords can aid in an analysis of the evolution of research hotspots [ 26 ]. For the same burst term model values, there were 25 burst terms worldwide and 5 burst terms in East Asia during the period 2000–2021. The number of emergent words in East Asia was much lower than the global number, reflecting the limited exploration of this topic in East Asia. In addition, the durations of discussions featuring topical words were shorter in East Asia, lasting, on average, 2.8 years (a median value of 3 years) compared with 7.8 years (a median value of 6 years) at the global scale, and the years of emergence of topical words also lagged behind in East Asia.

Burst keywords worldwide (A) and in East Asia (B).

Citations in the literature

Citations in the literature in the global and East Asia are shown in Figure 2A . It can be seen that the worldwide and East Asian citations overlap highly with their literature growth trends, and also that the East Asian literature citations are growing faster than the worldwide. This indicates that the research literature in East Asia is receiving increasing attention.

Tables 6 shows counts of the top 10 most frequently cited international and East Asian articles.

Most cited articles on missing persons globally and in East Asia

Globally, four of the top 10 cited articles were published in forensic science journals, two were from Forensic Science International , another two were published in the International Journal of Legal Medicine . All four articles focused on the identification of human remains. The most cited article among the top 10 articles in the WOSCC were “ Opportunities and obstacles for deep learning in biology and medicine ”. Five of the 10 articles were in the review category and focused on deep learning in biology and medicine [ 36 ], animal necropsy [ 37 ], decomposition of human remains [ 14 ], DNA identification of human remains [ 38 ], and age estimation from human remains [ 18 ]. Taken together, these 10 articles were oriented towards the identification of skeletal remains. The median date of publication of the 10 articles was 2007, with the most recent highly cited literature (one article) published in 2018. This finding could indicate that no new research hotspots focusing on topics such as missing persons have emerged in recent years and that a bottleneck has arisen relating to the exploration and discussion of this topic. In addition, half of the frequently cited literature was in the review category, which also reflects the low number of groundbreaking studies. Moreover, all 10 articles were authored by researchers based in institutions in Europe and the USA, reflecting the currently low levels of discussion on pertinent research in East Asia.

The literature in East Asia as a whole is nevertheless relevant for the identification of human remains. The top 10 cited articles focused on topics that pertain to the identification of skeletal remains. These topics include the exploration of identification techniques, such as the development of single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) systems for forensic identification [ 39 ] and the development of the HIrisPlex system [ 40 ]. They also include identification tools, such as microRNA markers for identification [ 41 ] and age estimation using mRNA, DNA methylation, DNA rearrangement, and telomere length [ 42 ]. Meanwhile, some of the more recent studies from East Asia have also applied novel techniques, such as deep learning and 3D scanning techniques for sex estimation [ 43 ]. Such studies indicate that a focus on the application of new technologies relating to the topic of missing persons is beginning to emerge in East Asia, giving new impetus to this type of research in the region.

In addition, of the 3 381 articles in the WOSCC, the four highly cited articles mentioned above were not categorized in the Essential Science Indicators (ESI) field of legal medicine. According to the rules for identifying highly cited articles in the WOSCC, all papers published in the same ESI field, in the same year, were ranked on the basis of the number of citations in descending order from the highest to the lowest, with the top 1% of papers deemed highly cited papers in the WOSCC. Therefore, we speculated that this topic may not currently be a hot topic within legal medicine. Moreover, the issues discussed in these four papers continue to focus on biometrics.

Summary analysis of relevant publications from East Asia

This bibliometric analysis has revealed some differences between the global and East Asian literatures on missing persons and related topics. The analysis of studies conducted in East Asia showed that although the East Asian studies exhibited some degree of similarity, with many of them focusing on the identification of human remains, there are numerous ethnic groups in East Asia. Consequently, data on identified human remains encompass various ethnicities, such as Manchu, Mongolian, Tibetan, Han, Dong, and Yi [ 33 , 35 , 44 ], and there are even studies that have identified Chinese surnames through short tandem repeat Y-STR profiles of Chinese surnames [ 45 ]. There are also some forensic studies have examined domestic animals and insects in East Asia [ 46 , 47 ]. In addition, given the demographic, geographic, and climatic factors in East Asia, large-scale disasters and MPS feature commonly in the literature on East Asia [ 20–25 ], which has explored how human remains can be identified in contexts of large-scale disasters, such as floods and earthquakes. In contrast, only one survey on the identification of human remains following large-scale warfare in East Asia [ 48 ] was found for the current study, although some studies are available worldwide, for example, on the wars that took place in Vietnam and Croatia [ 49 , 50 ]. At the same time, only two social science studies were found among the 238 identified papers focusing on East Asia: (i) an investigation of people who disappeared because of armed conflict [ 8 ] and (ii) provisions for sanctioning offenders with mental disorders in China [ 51 ].

The exploration of topics such as missing persons in East Asia is geographically specific, but the general direction of the research is in line with the global trend and provides some interesting research material. However, some problems remain. Firstly, the small scale of research in East Asia along with its lack of depth, innovation, and richness has contributed to the low level of discussion of East Asian literature worldwide. The East Asian region has a strong political and cultural identity and a long history, but there are relatively limited existing and publicly available documents that address the issue of missing persons. However, it is encouraging to see that more and more governments and instruction are collaborating on missing persons in East Asia, for example, the remains of Chinese People’s Volunteers martyr. We also found it interesting that the International Committee of the Red Cross has promoted books on related topics worldwide and also in East Asia, such as Forensic Identification of Human Remains ( https://www.icrc.org/en/publication/4154-forensic-identification-human-remains ); such expert advice or workbooks from international organizations can enhance communication and interoperability in the East Asian region and internationally. Secondly, because of language barriers between countries in this region, it is possible to move from a top-level structure to specific issues to meet individualized and social needs and enrich materials on forensic humanitarianism in East Asia. It is also possible to focus on the legacy of historical war events in East Asia, such as the Nanjing Massacre and other historical war events entailing mass casualties to obtain more material rooted in the East Asian context. This analysis indicates that there is scope for the East Asian region to continue to develop research areas with East Asian characteristics, such as MPS, and to explore some interesting topics relating to the social sciences as well as produce more cutting-edge, unique, and innovative research.

Analysis of the lack of social science research

Although few new hot topics were identified, there is a growing body of studies that provide inputs for identifying human remains, whether from microscopic DNA, RNA, mitochondria, and amino acids or from macroscopic bones and insects. Some studies have begun to explore the use of artificial intelligence to assist in the identification process [ 52 , 53 ]. Research inputs in all of these areas can facilitate various identification-related tasks. However, it is important to be aware of the strong social connections of each missing or unidentified person that are an important part of their lives and to treat those connections with consideration as a way of respecting their human rights. Over time, their psychological needs will change, and the probability of receiving external support will diminish. The past cannot be admonished, but the future can be traced, and the focus, worldwide, should be on achieving a deeper understanding of the needs of the people concerned. Social science research is challenging, entailing complex statistics, analyses, and summaries, with fewer studies existing within the social science literature compared with the natural sciences literature. Therefore, this analysis only included a few studies from the social sciences.

Some of the more recent studies have provided important inputs in areas such as the potential trauma of collecting the victims’ DNA for their families [ 54 ], ethical inquiries [ 5 , 55 ], and psychological assessments [ 56 , 57 ]. An increasing body of social science research is currently available and more researchers are starting to focus on this area of research. Strengthening jurisprudential, psychological, and sociological research in this field and presenting more reliable studies will deepen explorations in this field. Such studies can also be combined with social events that are hot topics of discussion, such as the brutalization of children in Canada’s aboriginal residential schools, the crash of a China Eastern Airlines passenger plane on 21 March 2022, and the earthquake and tsunami that occurred in Japan on 11 March 2011. The large-scale human remains left by these events can yield information on the victims relating to their race, sex, and age, which would aid future research on the identification of human remains. In addition, an exploration of the social effects associated with these events is warranted. Some recent studies conducted on the COVID-19 pandemic have focused on this topic [ 58 , 59 ], applying diverse research perspectives, and discussions have incorporated both the natural and social sciences.

As an attempt to find missing persons or forensic humanitarian literature, this paper may still lack a list of relevant events in East Asia, but we must recognize the importance of the subject of missing persons. Human beings are an important part of the world; with the progress of society, it is often necessary to review the past and explore human remains, which is an inherent humanitarian task. This bibliometric analysis shows that (i) the research on the issue of missing persons in East Asia has great potential, but lacks the breadth and depth; (ii) the world lacks social science research on the issue of missing persons. In order to address the issues addressed in (i), we need to strengthen cooperation both among East Asian countries and between East Asia and the other parts of the world, and also the East Asian region should continue to preserve its characteristics, effectively addressing current issues; and for (ii), we should continuously promote the development of social science research on missing persons in jurisprudence, ethics, psychology, humanities, etc. and enable more people to participate in social science-oriented discussions focusing on the topic of missing persons. These will make the research on missing persons begin to flourish.

Yehui Lv and Zixuan Zeng were responsible for developing the study concept and drafting the paper. Zixuan Zeng summarized the main information in tables and figures. Ishmael Dikeledi conducted initial proofreading. All authors contributed to the final text and approved it.

This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals.

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

This work was supported by the research scholarships from the International Committee of the Red Cross and Shanghai Sailing Plan [21YF1418800].

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The NamUs Mission

Core Services The History of NamUs NamUs Milestones The Extent of the Problem

Core Services

Nationwide information clearinghouse  offering free, secure, easy-to-use, online technology to help expedite case associations and resolutions.

Free-of-charge forensic services including odontology, fingerprint examination, anthropology, and DNA analyses.

Investigative support  from seasoned staff who provide case consultations and support criminal justice efforts to drive missing and unidentified person case resolutions.

Training and outreach  from NamUs subject matter experts, including assistance with planning and facilitating Missing Person Day events across the country.

The History of NamUs

In 2003, the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) began funding major efforts to maximize the use of DNA technology in our criminal justice system, including in the investigation of missing and unidentified person cases. By 2005, NIJ expanded its efforts with the “Identifying the Missing Summit”, where criminal justice practitioners, forensic scientists, policymakers, and victim advocates defined major challenges in investigating and solving missing and unidentified decedent cases. As a result of that summit, the Deputy Attorney General created the National Missing Persons Task Force, which identified the need to improve access to information that would help solve missing and unidentified person cases. The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs) was created to meet that need.

In collaboration with NIJ, the National Forensic Science Technology Center (NFSTC) and Occupational Research and Assessment (ORA) developed and launched the NamUs Unidentified Persons (UP) database in 2007. The following year, the NamUs Missing Persons (MP) database was launched, and in 2009, the databases were connected for automatic case comparisons, expanding the power of NamUs to make associations between missing and unidentified persons. NFSTC managed the NamUs program through September 2011, in partnership with NIJ.

In 2011, daily management of the NamUs program was transitioned to the University of North Texas Health Science Center (UNTHSC), with continued administration and oversight by the NIJ. Management through the UNTHSC’s Center for Human Identification enhanced NamUs’ ability to facilitate DNA services and enhanced the quality and quantity of DNA information entered into NamUs.

In 2012, an Analytical Division was added to NamUs, offering criminal justice professionals additional resources to locate information on missing persons, locate family members for DNA sample collections and next of kin death notifications, and disposition tips and leads. Also in 2012, the NamUs AFIS/Fingerprint Unit was created, bringing additional in-house forensic services to NamUs, including a collaboration with the FBI’s Latent Print Unit to search all unidentified decedent prints through the Next Generation Identification (NGI) system.

In late 2015, plans to perform a complete rebuild of the NamUs application began. Stakeholders from the law enforcement, medical examiner, coroner, non-profit, and public sector were interviewed as part of a Discovery Phase to plan the features and functionality of the upgraded system. Development work began in the first quarter of 2016 and culminated in the release of the NamUs 2.0 application in May 2018.

NamUs Milestones

2005 Identifying the Missing Summit held to identify challenges and needs related to missing and unidentified person investigations

2007 Unidentified Persons (UP) database launched

2008 Missing Persons (MP) database launched

2009 UP and MP databases connected for automatic case comparisons

2011 Daily management of NamUs transitions to UNT Health Science Center

2012 NamUs Analytical and Case Support Division and Fingerprint/AFIS Unit created

2016 NamUs 2.0 software development project began

– NIJ and FBI Fingerprint Partnership established

2018 NamUs 2.0 released

Daily management of NamUs transitions to RTI & Database Management transitions to OJP

NIJ and FBI Forensic Genetic Genealogy Searching Partnership established

The Extent of the Problem

Over 600,000 individuals go missing in the United States every year. Fortunately, many missing children and adults are quickly found, alive and well. However, tens of thousands of individuals remain missing for more than one year – what many agencies consider “cold cases”. [1]

It is estimated that 4,400 unidentified bodies are recovered each year, with approximately 1,000 of those bodies remaining unidentified after one year. [2]

Medical examiner and coroner offices reported 11,380 unidentified remains on record as of 2018. [3]

[note 1] Between 2007 and 2020, an average of 664,776 missing persons records annually were entered into the National Crime Information Center. See https://www.fbi.gov/services/cjis/ncic

[note 2] Medical Examiners And Coroners' Offices, 2004 . Matthew J. Hickman, Ph.D., Kristen A. Hughes, M.P.A.,  Bureau of Justice Statistics , Kevin J. Strom, Ph.D., Jeri D. Ropero-Miller, Ph.D., DABFT,  RTI International

[note 3] Medical Examiner and Coroner Offices, 2018 . Connor Brooks, Bureau of Justice Statistics , November 2021

Missing Persons Group

Explore our work in the area of Missing Persons

We're researching patterns of behaviour that may precede a person going missing and working to improve how cases are handled.

Each year, people go missing during their regular, everyday activities and during major events like wars or natural disasters. In the UK alone, a person is reported missing to the police every 2 minutes. 

The Missing Persons research group (formerly known as the Centre for the Study of Missing Persons) was founded to accommodate the growing interest in the field. Our purpose is to:

• Increase capacity to conduct research in the field of missing persons.
• Promote the development of professionalism and the process of professionalisation within the missing persons community.
• Facilitate knowledge transfer between sectors serving this field.
• Collate and organise the widest possible range of information, research, publications and data about the nature and extent of missing persons and discuss the solutions which have been and are being applied.
• Make this information available to those working in the missing persons community.

Missing persons is a universal phenomenon that remains vastly under researched and often misunderstood by the public, professionals, politicians and academics. This group provides a clear focus for research, knowledge transfer and educational provision to academics, professionals and relatives of missing people. 

We promote networking opportunities between practitioners and academics from the UK and internationally by organising and co-organising international conferences, webinars and media work. 

Our group members cover a range of expertise, including:

• Geography of missing persons
• Cost of missing persons investigation
• Missing persons and mental health
• Risk assessment of missing persons
• Adults with dementia who go missing
• Inter-agency work in cases of missing persons
• Unaccompanied migrant minors who go missing
• Missing on a night out
• Children missing from care
• Return interviews
• Needs of families of missing persons
• Child abduction and child exploitation
• Missing abroad
• Search and rescue
• Forensic identification
• Publicity appeals

The group also supports the Missing Persons Information Hub — a single point of reference with information about all aspects of missing persons. It is aimed at everyone who may be involved or needs help, including persons who are missing, those connected to them, professionals and academics.  

Research impact 

We are involved with a wide variety of research projects and consultancy that span the entire subject of missing persons. We promote an international outlook and are open to work with organisations from the UK and from other countries and cultures. For more information about our research please see our staff profiles, linked below.

Our staff have an established track record in providing research and knowledge transfer services to a range of organisations, including:

• National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC)
• UK Missing Persons Unit — National Crime Agency
• Missing Children Europe
• Missing People
• Police forces across the UK
• Police National Search Centre
• Search and Rescue teams
• His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS)
• Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC)

The Missing Persons research group lead, Dr Karen Shalev Greene , is the chief editor of the International Journal of Missing Persons and co-presenter of the Missing Persons Uncovered podcast .  

Funded projects and consultancy

• Cost of Missing Person Investigations (2021-2022). Funded by the Home Office.
• People who go missing abroad: an examination of patterns, costs and investigative challenges (2020). Funded by Metropolitan Police Force. 
• Evaluation of Child Rescue Alert system (2018). Funded by the National Crime Agency.
• Wellbeing of Police officers and staff dealing with missing persons cases. Funded via Erasmus+ trainee programme, which paid for two Portuguese students who worked as research assistants for four months.
• Safeguarding Unaccompanied Migrant Minors from Going Missing by Identifying Best Practices and Training Actors on Interagency Cooperation. Funded by EU DAPHNE programme.

Teaching and related courses

The Missing Persons research group members translate high quality research into teaching material for criminology and forensics courses at undergraduate and postgraduate levels . We also offer supervision for PhD study in Criminology and professional doctorates .

Our Missing Persons: Issues and Investigation module includes input from both our academic staff and our contacts in practice. We also deliver the postgraduate Missing Persons: Global Perspective modules at MSc level.

Our stand-alone short course in Missing Persons: Global Perspectives is the first of its kind worldwide. It’s suitable for practitioners and members of the public with an interest in the field. This distance-learning course runs for three and a half months and is worth 30 credits at postgraduate level. Read more and book your place .  

Partnerships and collaborations

• Association of Lowland Search and Rescue (ALSAR)
• Child Exploitation and Online Protection Command (CEOP) (National Crime Agency)
• International Centre of Missing and Exploited Children (ICMEC)
• National Crime Agency
• National Police Lead on Missing Persons
• Police Innovation Fund
• UK Missing Persons Unit (National Crime Agency)

Group Leader

Deputy leader.

Dr Craig Collie

Principal Lecturer

[email protected]

School of Criminology and Criminal Justice

Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences

PhD Supervisor

Researchers

Dr Dion Glass

Senior Lecturer

[email protected]

Ms Simona Ciobotaru

[email protected]

Faculty of Science and Health

PhD projects

• Understanding why some missing persons investigations turn into cold cases.
• Mapping the journeys of missing people with dementia.
• Advanced Techniques in the Management and Intelligence Gathering in the Search for Missing Persons.
• What are we Missing? ‘The effectiveness of Missing Persons information capture systems in supporting the identification and safeguarding of vulnerable young persons and adults engaged in County Lines activities across England and Wales.

THE MISSING PERSONS