New fingerprinting technology will save children’s’ lives 

It was thought that fingerprints of children were unreliable for recognizing and identifying children. Research and new technology are showing that the fingerprints of children can matched with very high accuracy, and this will be able to provide great benefits for millions of children.

A baby just six hours old shows distinguishing characteristics in its fingerprints. Research from Michigan State University has found that fingerprints taken from a baby 6 months old can still be recognized one year later. 

In a study at hospital in Dayalbagh, India, fingerprints of a group of children from 0 to 5 years old were collected four times over the course of a year. State of the art technology analyzed the prints and had a recognition rate of 98.9%.

Implications are major, especially for children in developing nations. Current statistics show that by the age of 5, more than 5 million children lose their lives to vaccine-preventable diseases. With new technology, healthcare workers can use digital fingerprints to keep track of children’s medical records, such as vaccinations given or due. Children’s fingerprints can also be used to keep track of supplemental food delivery, as well as provide national identification documents for children. 



Identifying Children And Saving Lives One Thumbprint At A Time

Anil Jain and Jessi Adler, Sept. 21, 2016,  MSU Today, Michigan State University


New Study Shows A Child's Fingerprint Doesn't Age

Jennifer Hicks, Contributor, Sep 22, 2016, Forbes |Tech | Medicine

A new Mastercard payment solution verified with fingerprints... and selfies

The good news: the use of chip credit cards is showing results in reducing credit card fraud at retail establishments. Mastercard has seen a 54% decrease in fraud in the past year from the retailers accepting their chip credit card.

The bad news is that online fraud – “card not present” transactions – is on the rise. 

Retailers have been testing out different ways of fighting online fraud, but current results have not been optimal. Some buyers are abandoning their shopping carts due to the “excessive payment security checks” added by some retailers. Other online buyers are being wrongly associated with fraud, a "false positive". In 2015, U.S. Retailers lost an estimated $118 billion in potential sales from buyers being declined by financial institutions, due to suspicion of fraud.

Mobile apps such as Apple Pay, Android Pay and Samsung Pay give smartphone and tablet users the ability to make payments with fingerprint authentication. 

Mastercard has been testing a new solution that will allow buyers to have the option of authenticating payment for online purchase with a fingerprint – or a selfie photo. The mobile app is called Identity Check. It was tested first in the Netherlands, and then in Canada and the U.S. A larger roll-out of the program, in partnership with banks and merchants, is due to be launched “in the coming weeks”. That sounds like it will be just in time for this year’s holiday season.



Pay-by-selfie, pay-by-fingerprint: Coming your way soon after MasterCard's Dutch experiment

By Tina Amirtha for Benelux, April 19, 2016

MasterCard transactions to be verified with selfies and fingerprints

By Chris Burt for BiometricUpdate.com, September 15, 2016

Ripley’s unbelievable fingerprint claim

Robert Ripley introduced readers to a wide variety of strange facts, but a Ripley’s Believe It or Not panel, published in 1937, claiming that a pair of Austrian twins had “the same tastes, heartbeat, voice tone, blood pressure and … their fingerprints are the same" created a controversy.

Professors from the University of Oklahoma did some fact checking and in a newspaper editorial responded, “The monthly FBI Law Enforcement bulletin, published by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, devoted a page to the Sejvel girls. Their pictures and their fingerprints were printed. And, Mr. Ripley, they weren't the same at all!”

Research explains how even though identical twins share the same DNA, the development of their fingerprints is subject to environmental forces. An article in Circulation Research, AMA Journals explains in scientific detail how the ridges, loops and whorls of fingerprint patterns are formed. Compressive stresses act upon the skin “like the buckling of land masses under compression.” As twins occupy different positions in the womb, the variations in stress and pressure are enough to create a slight difference in fingerprints. 



The Archivist: The Oklahoman exposes Ripley's unbelievable fingerprint claim in 1930s

By Mary Phillips For The Oklahoman Published: April 4, 2016


Why do identical twins have different fingerprints? Why do we have fingerprints to begin with?

By C. Claiborne Ray, nytimes.com, Science Q & A: Twins and Fingerprints, Oct. 5, 2009


Mechanical Control of Tissue Morphogenesis
By Parth Patwari and Richard T. Lee, Circulation Research, American Heart Association Journals, Published Aug. 1, 2008

Photo credits:
Vintage twins: Image from page 842 of "The Ladies' home journal" (1889)

"Ripley's Believe It or Not" panel excerpt: Image from The Daily Oklahoman (1937), The Oklahoman Archives

Common cancer treatment drug may cause temporary fingerprint loss

The drug responsible is capecitabine, used to treat colorectal and breast cancer. A side effect of the drug – hand and foot syndrome (HFS), a condition causing redness, blisters and swelling –  was thought to be the cause of the temporary loss of fingerprints. 

A recently published study from the Netherlands* found that patients could experience severe loss of fingerprint quality with or without suffering from HFS. More research is needed. The good news is that fingerprints returned in 2 to 4 weeks after treatment ended.

It’s important for cancer patients to be aware of this condition, as fingerprint authentication is now used in commerce and bank transactions, in law enforcement, in some passport applications, and in mobile device log-ons .

Patients that are undergoing treatment would do well to carry a note from their doctor stating that they’re being treated with the drug capecitabine, especially when considering international travel.

*JAMA Oncology, published online August 25, 2016.

Fingerprints Disappear During Capecitabine Therapy

Fran Lowry, Medscape.com, August 29, 2016

Happy Labor Day Weekend

We hope you have a happy and safe Labor Day Weekend! 

Enjoy the last splash of summer. Back-to-School time is here! 😉

Fingerprint First! Know your Identity History

Accurate Biometrics recently submitted an article to AllNurses.com. The information shared with nursing students is important to young professionals across a wide variety of careers, and so we're sharing the AllNurses article this week on our blog. 

Accurate Biometrics has been assisting the medical community with fingerprinting for nursing licensure for 16 years. One of our nursing student clients experienced an unfortunate situation that prevented her from getting licensed to accept a job offer that was waiting for her after graduation. Her compelling story is worth sharing in hope that others can learn from a simple but costly mistake.

This summer a woman, we’ll call her Mary, drove many miles to our corporate office in Illinois, to get results of an FBI Departmental Order 556-73, Identity History Summary Report. This report allows an individual to request a copy of their record on file with the FBI to determine if the information is accurate, complete and up-to-date. Mary is a nursing student who had completed a nursing program in her thirties, just finished her RN licensure program, and even had the good fortune of having a nursing job waiting for her upon graduation. Imagine Mary’s shock when she was denied a state nursing license because she had a disqualifying criminal record in another state that prevented her from getting her professional nursing license.  

Mary had no idea why her license was denied and contacted us after she learned that Accurate Biometrics could assist her in learning what was on her fingerprint-based background check. She was in absolute horror when she viewed the results of the FBI “Self Check Report” in our office. Mary had a “open” record in another state from her early twenties from a seemingly minor event that she had completely forgotten about. She had no idea that there was something looming on her record waiting to throw a roadblock in her path to a bright future. Seeing the impact of the realization that she had no job, a career in jeopardy, and the possibility of being unable to make full use of all her years of schooling was hard to bear.

For a low cost fee, Accurate Biometrics can help nursing students check the status of their criminal history record through an FBI Departmental Order. The FBI Departmental Order is the formal request that allows an individual access to all criminal history on file with the FBI.  No matter what state you are licensed in, if the states requires a fingerprint-based background check, chances are that your fingerprints will be run through the FBI CJIS database. A simple fingerprint search through a Departmental Order will give you peace of mind to ensure that you do not have a disqualifying criminal conviction that would prevent you from being licensed in your profession.

In Mary's case, if she had conducted the FBI self-check before entering her nursing program, it’s most likely she could have had her record expunged and eliminated the stress and heartache of a career setback that will cost her untold time and money to get back on track. 

Accurate Biometrics, based in Illinois, has been fingerprinting nurses for licensure for over 16 years. We have the expertise to help you navigate through the Departmental Order 556-73 process to ensure you have a clear record to work in the medical field. We currently process fingerprints for the State of Illinois and the State of California, including out of state and foreign submissions.  

Peggy Critchfield
President
Accurate Biometrics

Please contact through our website for more details: 
info@accuratebiometrics.com