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| Photo: Getty Images/Andrew Merry |
Our fingerprints are uniquely formed partly from genetics, and partly from pressure against our tiny finger pads in our mother’s womb as we grow and develop. Our fingerprints don’t change throughout our lifetime, but the ease of reading them does. When we reach puberty and our skin gets oilier, latent prints become easier to read. As we get old, our fingerprints start to harden, making it more difficult to scan and read the prints of seniors.
Some climbing animals such as gorillas, chimpanzees and koalas have fingerprints as well. Scientists believe it has something to do with evolutionary selection favoring ridged paws. However, a report of koala prints fooling Australian crime scene investigators is just a tall tale. A fingerprint specialist can spot the differences.
Historically, evidence of fingerprints being used to identify criminals was found in China in the 3rd century BCE. Fingerprint use in the West really expanded in the 1800s when Scottish physician Henry Fauld wrote an article for a science journal noting that fingerprints could be used for forensic purposes. Faulds wrote to Charles Darwin for help. An ailing Darwin passed the request to a scholarly relative, Francis Galton. Galton, known as the pioneer of fingerprint identification, amassed a collection of over 8,000 prints and developed a system for naming and classifying them.
The use of fingerprints as identification took another leap in the 1970’s with the introduction of computer-based systems. In the 1920s, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover ordered the compilation of a national pool of fingerprints. Today, the FBI’s Next Generation Identification (NGI) system has a database of over 135 million civil and criminal prints. The average query response time of the Tenprint Rapsheet Request (TPRS) system is less than 20 seconds.
Fingerprints are a standard of biometric identification. They are easy to use, convenient, and you can’t forget them like you can a wallet. Biometrics authentication methods are often tested – both by researchers and by hackers – and therefore are constantly being refined. For example, it is not the actual fingerprint image stored in your mobile device, but encrypted data created with your fingerprint and complex algorithms. The future of biometric authentication may be layered authentication, using a combination of fingerprints, face and voice.
Koalas, wood glue and the FBI: Fascinating facts about fingerprinting
By Alexandra Fisher and Simon Leo Brown for ABC News, Late Night Live, Australia, Jun, 30 2018
FBI NGI Monthly Fact Sheet
June 2018
Accurate Biometrics
Practical solutions for fingerprint collection and processing.
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