Summary

Now, when you look at your fingers, you'll have a better understanding of what's involved when we obtain a fingerprint. In this chapter, we examined the evolution of fingerprint technology. We travelled back to the humble beginnings of law enforcement and the first official use of fingerprints as part of a forensic exercise. We then saw the development of the Henry Classification System and Comparative Dactyloscopy to help provide more structure in recognizing prints. We then traveled through the early days of manual fingerprint examination, to the use of automated systems, such as the FBI's IAFIS and NGI systems.

By now, you have a better understanding of modern-day fingerprint systems, from scanning, to digitizing, storing the templates, and matching the samples. We then covered what defines minutiae, and how examining the tiny details helps determine whether or not a fingerprint is a match to the template. Finally, we took a look at how fingerprint technology...