using an identification system to perform the steps of:

a) acquiring data from an individual's face, using a plurality of input units of one or more modalities, to generate acquired data;

b) processing the acquired data to generate a geometric image;

c) using a generic geometric model template of the human face;

d) fitting the generic geometric model template to the digital data of a candidate human subject according to a first mathematical method, to create a fitted model;

e) extracting metadata from the fitted model to describe the individual according to a second mathematical method;

f) storing the metadata in a machine readable format in a storage unit;

g) ranking entries of a database of previously stored metadata in a descending order according to their similarity to a new set of metadata; and

h) deciding whether the best ranked entry provides positive identification for the candidate human subject.