Writer identification using machine learning approaches: a comprehensive review

© 2018, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature. Handwriting is one of the most common types of questioned writing encountered and frequently attracts the attention in litigation. Contrary to the physiological characteristics, handwriting is a behavioral characteristic thus no two individuals with mature handwriting are exactly alike or an individual cannot produce the others writing exactly. Writing behavior and individualities are examined for similarities for both specimen and questioned document, thus, it is very efficient and effective strategy for biometrics. In this paper, we present a comprehensive review of writer identification methods and intend to provide taxonomy of dataset, feature extraction methods, as well as classification (conventional and deep learning based) for writer identification. For ease of reader, we grouped the discussion into English, Arabic, Western and Other languages from script prospective, whereas, from algorithm and methods perspective, we grouped the discussion with respect to implementation steps sequence. In the end, we highlighted the challenges and open research issues in the field of writer identification. Finally, we also suggest future direction.