The Federal Criminal Police (BKA) in Wiesbaden (decree from 01.15.1970 – OS I5 – 625400/7, Report BKA 1970) has had an Identification Commission since 1972 (IdKo) (Beyer et al. 1966; Endris 1982; Heidemann 1988; Rötzscher 1995). The Commission is associated with the Department OA 31 – Capital crimes, missing and dead persons.

Currently, 22 countries have identifying commissions (FBI 1961; Johnson 1995; Sperber 1979; Warnick 1995). These commissions (IdKo) are appointed by a department or organized by the police authority. They are deployed in disaster situations and under difficult conditions. Their composition varies depending on their underlying philosophies.

In France, the commission is the Service Central d’Identité Judiciaire (Hugret 1973). Surprisingly, some European countries, such as Austria and Italy, do not have an identifying commission (Rotondo 1967). In the USA, since 1940, the commission is the Disaster Identification Squad of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

The Identifying Commission of the Federal Criminal Police (BKA) in Wiesbaden works with several forensic odontologists (Rötzscher 1992b). In case of an accident involving a German aircraft in countries that are members of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), the Federal Aviation Authority (LBA) in Braunschweig (according to the Convention on International Civil Aviation) sends an air accident investigation team; the IdKo of the BKA may be part of this team. In all other cases, the LBA and BKA offer their help to the countries involved (Endris 1982).

People from different countries are affected in accidents with aircrafts or ships or in rail accidents. Since 1988, when INTERPOL was concerned with the exchange of information about missing and/or dead persons of unknown identity, the Federal Criminal Police Office established a working group “identification” to develop uniform documents for sampling of antemortem (AM) and postmortem (PM) data. They designed forms for identification including dental forms for AM and PM recording as well as comparison and conclusion forms. There is a guide for disaster victim identification (DVI) work and also a computer program, DVI International, from Plass Data® in Denmark. Nowadays, version 3.1 is available with the most recent design of the DVI forms (T. Solheim, IOFOS Newsletter 2011/1, pp 8ff.). In this group, forensic scientists and forensic odontologists work together as an expression of the interdisciplinary nature of the task. German forensic odontologists (members of the Federal Criminal IdKo) as members of the INTERPOL Standing Committee on DVI attend the annual meetings in part as needed.

The first INTERPOL DVI guide was published in 1984, revised in 1997, and updated in 2009 by the INTERPOL Standing Committee on Disaster Victim Identification. It provides guidelines for use by INTERPOL member countries in the identification of victims of disasters, and outlines how to set up a DVI team and how to manage DVI operations. It is designed to encourage the compatibility of procedures across international boundaries and can serve as a basis for INTERPOL Member States that do not have their own DVI teams or have never been confronted with such operational situations to set up a DVI team and to manage DVI operations. This DVI guide reflects the INTERPOL standard for DVI operations. It should be explicitly specified as the basis for DVI operations involving teams from different nations in advance of such operations. The current version is the result of the experience gained by the different international DVI teams over the years accrued through dealing with different kinds of disasters. It is designed to encourage the compatibility of procedures across international boundaries.

Of course, the recommendations cannot address every possible eventuality, but they give sound practical advice on major issues of victim identification. The emphasis is on the multidisciplinary approach of victim identification and the recommendations aim to stimulate DVI teams to apply “best practices” in order to obtain maximal results in DVI operations.

The most important requirement for victim identification work is the application of standards, across personal and national preferences, that are the common basis for the work in multinational DVI operations. For this reason, Standard Operation Protocols (SOP) for antemortem (AM) and postmortem (PM) procedures were established for fingerprinting, forensic pathology, forensic odontology, and DNA profiling. These protocols and standards were found to be crucial in the overall quality of the entire DVI process.

In order to establish, maintain, and review protocols and standards and promote effective international cooperation, INTERPOL calls upon each Member State to make preparations for DVI operations. If a disaster occurs in a country that does not have its own DVI team or if the disaster overpowers the country’s capacities, support by other DVI teams can be requested by INTERPOL. This has shown to be advantageous when disaster victims of different nationalities are expected. The nation in charge should then do its utmost to secure participation from other nations, at least as liaison officers, definitely from the medical and dental specialties, but also from the police system, in order to facilitate the exchange of information (particularly AM information).

The overall identification process involves recovery, AM, PM, reconciliation, and identification teams. It is clear that the actions and operation of these different teams should be active and well coordinated. Explicit descriptions of individual tasks involved in recovery, evidence collection, and victim identification are provided in the INTERPOL guide.

The recovery of bodies/body parts and the preservation of evidence/personal effects found at the disaster site represent the first steps in the victim identification process. As a rule, the search for the bodies of victims of a disaster cannot begin until all have been rescued. In general, these operations are initially chaotic and disorganized.

The recovery team has the important tasks of collecting evidence, such as bodies and body parts and personal property, from the disaster scene and accurately recording the findings. This requires accurate mapping (photographic aerial overview or GPS mapping) of the disaster area, which allows the team to record from which part of the site the given evidence was recovered. Usually the incident site will be organized in a grid system. Body numbering is performed according to INTERPOL guidelines and has to be applied by all teams to avoid errors and the creation of even more chaos. The given body numbering system (international country telephone code, site number, and body number as applied in the Tsunami disaster (ex. 32-1-00596)) is the reference for future disasters. This unique body number has to stay with the body during the subsequent stages of the identification process and will be visible on all related documentation (forms and photographs).

It is recommended that a forensic odontologist be part of the recovery team because a trained specialist has a better eye for dental evidence. In some cases, such as with charred bodies, it might be necessary for the odontologist on the recovery team to consolidate or describe the dental evidence on site before it is removed to avoid destruction of the brittle dental substances during transportation to the mortuary.

The matching of separate body parts should be performed only by authorized forensic medical experts, and not by recovery personnel. More generally, each body part should be labeled. Medical and dental experts should be at the scene to assist the police in collecting body parts, particularly bones and teeth.

The Recovery and Evidence Collection Team performs the following tasks relating to the recovery of bodies: