Gloves

No Trace Project > Threat Library > Mitigations > Gloves

Gloves can prevent you from leaving fingerprints and DNA on surfaces you touch, and can hide your hand characteristics.

To avoid leaving fingerprints and DNA on surfaces you touch, use the right kind of gloves:

• Use non-permeable, thick latex or rubber gloves.
• Do not use thin gloves (such as thin latex or rubber gloves) because your fingerprints can pass through them.
• Do not use leather gloves because they can leave their own unique prints on surfaces you touch (called glove prints^[1]).
• Do not use work gloves by themselves because they are generally permeable, and can let your sweat (and therefore your DNA) out.

And take appropriate precautions:

• Make sure that your DNA is not already on the outside of the gloves, because it would be transferred from the gloves to any surface you touch. To ensure this, you can use a new pair of gloves that come in airtight packaging.
• Do not leave your DNA on the outside of the gloves when you put them on. To ensure this, you must put them on without touching the outside of the gloves^[2].
• While wearing the gloves, do not touch your skin or any surface that might contain your DNA, because the DNA would be transferred from the surface to the gloves and from there to any surface you touch.

You can wear multiple pairs of gloves on top of each other. For example, wearing work gloves on top of thick latex or rubber gloves gives you both the sturdiness of the work gloves and the non-permeability of the thick latex or rubber gloves.

If you wear gloves to avoid leaving DNA on surfaces you touch, you will also want to avoid leaving DNA in other ways (e.g., skin flakes or hair falling off your body). For more information, see the related mitigation DNA minimization protocols.

To hide your hand characteristics such as skin color or tattoos, wear gloves that fully cover your skin. See the related mitigation Anonymous dress.

When using gloves, you should be aware that:

• You can leave fingerprints on the inside of gloves you wear, depending on their material.
• You leave DNA on the inside of gloves you wear.
• If you wear gloves during an action, traces from the action site (e.g., traces of accelerant) may be deposited on the gloves, and traces from the gloves (e.g., textile fibers) may be deposited at the action site. These traces could be used to link the gloves to the action site.

For all these reasons, if you need to use gloves during an action, you should use new gloves dedicated to the action and dispose of them afterward.

• The fingerprints topic.
• Handschuhe^[3] (in German).

Techniques addressed by this mitigation