Assessment of signature handwriting evidence via score-based likelihood ratio based on comparative measurement of relevant dynamic features

[Display omitted] •Probability density distribution indicates variances within- and between-writers.•Score-based log-LR was employed to estimate the strength of handwriting evidence.•Performance validation was employed to measure the accuracy, discriminating power.•Calibration of the likelihood ratio calculation method presented in this paper.•The relevant dynamic features were much more distinctive than static features. This paper extends on previous research on the extraction and statistical analysis on relevant dynamic features (width, grayscale and radian combined with writing sequence information) in forensic handwriting examinations. In this paper, a larger signature database was gathered, including genuine signatures, freehand imitation signatures, random forgeries and tracing imitation signatures, which are often encountered in casework. After applying Principle Component Analysis (PCA) of the variables describing the proximity between specimens, a two-dimensional kernel density estimation was used to describe the variability of within-genuine comparisons and genuine–forgery comparisons. We show that the overlap between the within-genuine comparisons and the genuine–forgery comparisons depends on the imitated writer and on the forger as well. Then, in order to simulate casework conditions, cases were simulated by random sampling based on the collected signature dataset. Three-dimensional normal density estimation was used to estimate the numerator and denominator probability distribution used to compute a likelihood ratio (LR). The comparisons between the performance of the systems in SigComp2011 (based on static features) and the method presented in this paper (based on relevant dynamic features) showed that relevant dynamic features are better than static features in terms of accuracy, false acceptance rate, false rejection rate and calibration of likelihood ratios.