Fingerprint data
The main fact when it comes to fingerprints is that no two people have ever been found to have identical fingerprints. Identical twins share most of their characteristics, including their DNA, but they don’t share the same fingerprints on their fingertips. This makes these fingerprints one of the most secure ways to verify a person’s identity.
Fingerprinting is used by all law enforcement agencies as a way of finding out the identity of criminals. A crime scene has not been fully searched until the technician in charge of fingerprinting and analysis uses his powders to make the invisible identifiers appear.
When analyzing fingerprint data collected at crime scenes, technicians often had a paper copy of each fingerprint so they could be compared to the fingerprint left at the crime scene. Today there is a computer program called AFIS that can scan the prints and compare them to find a match. AFIS has made the job of print identification easier to do and much less time consuming.
Fingerprinting is done when you get your driver’s licenses, and when you set up checking accounts at some banks, and as a passkey identifier at some businesses, and when you join the military, and when you get arrested. Many parents ask for their child’s fingerprints to be taken in case something horrible happens and the child needs to be identified.
Photographs of children are used to help identify them, but as the child ages, their facial features also change and do not always look the same. The prints on the palms of your hands and on your fingers will always be the same and the only difference in them will be the fact that they get bigger as we grow.
These prints are made up of ridges of skin that form patterns on the fingertips. The ridges actually form while you’re in the womb and don’t change as you age. If you damage your print by cutting or disturbing the skin that creates the ridges, the rest of your print can be used as an identifier.
Removing the skin from the fingertips will alter a person’s prints for a short period of time. This is usually done with a chemical that burns off the ridges of the skin. The ridges will return as the skin heals and will be in the same pattern as before.
Technology has advanced enough to make it possible to obtain prints of human skin. There was a time when traces left on a victim could not be lifted because human skin is not a rigid surface. The ability to transfer fingerprints from skin to a sheet of paper makes it possible to apprehend more criminals guilty of assault or murder.
Not all gloves will prevent your fingerprints from transferring to an item. Some ultra-thin gloves allow the ridges to still leave an impression on items you touch.