randomly acquired characteristic (RAC)

A feature or defect that can occur in the manufacturing process or from individual usage occurring after manufacture (for example, wear and damage defects such as cuts and gouges, reproducible blemishes, impression voids, improper and extraneous inking, or coincidental peripheral printing). The position, orientation, size, and shape of these characteristics are features that are part of the information an FDE uses to form an opinion about the probability of items being generated by the same or different source.