Alphonse Bertillon (1827 - Alphonse Bertillon (April 23, 1853 - February 13, 1914) was a French law enforcement officer and biometrics researcher, who created anthropometry, an identification system based on physical measurements. Anthropometry was the first scientific system police used to identify criminals. Until this time, criminals could only be identified based on eyewitness accounts, which are known to be unreliable. The method was eventually supplanted by fingerprinting ?007 TopFoto