Biometric modality: Fingerprint – use cases
One-to-one (1:1) verification applications
- Plantar impressions (the ridge system of the toes and soles of the feet) were traditionally used in China to identify newborn infants since ancient times. In 7th century Japan the law allowed a man to divorce his wife by nominating one of seven official reasons on a document and appending his inked finger impression to make the transaction legal and binding.
- Fingerprint sensors on smartphones have enabled 21st century users to self-enrol their fingerprint in order to access their digital devices securely. This has helped to increase public confidence and acceptance of fingerprint biometrics and address the perception that fingerprints are associated solely with criminal registration and the investigation of crime.
- Fingerprints can be stored in an electronic chip in a similar manner to other biometrics such as face e.g. in a travel document or on a banking card. This means the identity of the person presenting the document/card can be verified without the need to hold fingerprints in a central database. The biometrics therefore stay in the possession of the owner.
One-to-many (1:N) identification applications
- US FBI Next Generation Identification (NGI) biometric system contains in excess of 160 million sets of fingerprints (10 Print records i.e. all ten digits of the enrollee).
- US DHS Office of Biometric Management (OBIM, formerly USVisit) has over 200 million 10 Prints for identity management purposes.
- The Indian Aadhaar programme (national population register) has enrolled the fingerprints of 1.2bn people. Aadhaar also uses face images and iris recognition in a multi-modal configuration common to many large-scale civil registration systems
Law enforcement applications
- A typical law enforcement fingerprint database would be designed to perform the following permutation of searches:
- A set of 10 Prints searching a 10 Print database
- A set of 10 Prints searching a Crime Scene Mark database
- A Crime Scene Mark searching a 10 Print database
- A Crime Scene Mark searching a Crime Scene Mark database
- Palm prints are often taken at the same time as fingerprints during the booking process. This is done to increase the probability of matching the palm prints with palm impressions recovered from crime scenes.
Fingerprint key considerations | Fingerprint overview | Other modalities
