People are writing more than ever with their keyboards and phones, but handwritten notes have become rare. Even signatures are going out of style. Most credit card purchases no longer require them, and if they do, you can usually just scratch one out with your fingernail. The age-old art of handwriting is in decline.
This marks a profound shift in how we communicate, but for one group of experts it also raises an existential question. Forensic handwriting examiners authenticate handwritten notes and signatures — or reveal them to be fakes — by analyzing distinctive features in our writing. As people write less by hand, will handwriting examination become irrelevant?
A recent report from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) suggests that the answer is no — if the field changes to keep up with the times. But the times are changing in more ways than one, and the decline in handwriting is only one of the challenges that the field will have to reckon with.
How the Experts Do It
Emily Will is a board-certified handwriting examiner in private practice in North Carolina. She has examined signatures on countless checks, wills, deeds and trusts. She has inspected medical records to assess whether a doctor’s signature may have been added at a later date than indicated, perhaps after a lawsuit was filed. She has also examined longer forms of writing, such as threatening or harassing letters and suicide notes. If the apparent suicide victim didn’t write the note, the police might have a homicide on their hands.
To assess whether a piece of handwriting was written by a particular person, examiners need something to compare it against, so ..
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