The Analysis of the Human Fingerprints Essays

In quadrants 1 and 2 how the amount and constituents of the fingerprint residue on the substrate affects the fingerprint image, is determined. In quadrant 1, excess sebum and moisture is first removed from the finger tips with the help of a clean cloth. In quadrant 2, fingertip is first wiped around the nose or forehead to create excess sebum. Quadrant 3 and 4 were used to compare the details between untreated and dusted fingerprint residues.

Center, National Forensic Science Technology. (2015, January 27). Principles of Fingerprint Analysis. Retrieved from Forensic Science Simplified: http://www.forensicsciencesimplified.org/prints/principles.html

Fingerprint comparison has always interested me because of the uniqueness in friction ridge detail. As a fingerprint expert, you learn that there are no two individual in the world that have the same fingerprints. Individuals can share the same DNA but their fingerprints will always be different. Examiners may be able to find two fingerprints that have many of the same characteristics, but not exactly the same as in the case of the Madrid bombing. The basics of fingerprint comparison will always be the same. However, it fascinates me how procedures change, and make fingerprint comparison more of a science.

There are three types of fingerprints: visible, plastic and latent. The visible fingerprint is the one, which is made with ink and can be seen easily. These can be made by the traditional technique, which uses the help of ink to see the person’s prints when pressed onto a paper. The plastic fingerprint is one that is made with materials like soap and wax. The last type is known as latent fingerprints. The impressions created on a surface by means of perspiration or natural oils are called latent fingerprints. To make a latent fingerprint visible you dust it with powders and lift it with tape. Another technique to getting fingerprints is by the

“Fingerprint recognition is one of the divorce inference using the impressions made by the minute ridge formations or patterns found on the fingertips. No two people have exactly the same arrangement of the ridge patterns, and the remaining patterns of any one individual unchanged. Fingerprints infallible provide a means of personal identification. Other personal characteristics may change, but not fingerprints”. (1)

The next significant advancement in fingerprinting was achieved by an Englishman, Dr. Henry Faulds, who created a fingerprint classification method and suggested using printers’ ink to obtain quality fingerprints (The History of Fingerprints). Perhaps the most important advancement in fingerprinting came in 1892, when a British Anthropologist, Sir Francis Galton, published the book Fingerprints. For a while it had been thought that no two fingerprints were identical. However, Galton became the first to scientifically prove this, as well as the fact that fingerprints remain unchanged throughout a person’s life (The History of Fingerprints). It was these two facts that made fingerprinting the preferred method of identification.

The importance of Fingerprints is because they are different from one person to another. The reasons they are important are because they can implicate the guilty by linking a suspect to the victim at the scene of the crime or it can exonerate a person from a crime who are innocent. (Gaensslen 2013) A finger print can be the single most important piece of evidence when solving a crime. Fingerprints are considered to be the best way to identify a person but can be easy to remove by wiping them away. Some cases the fingerprint evidence is important to be collected first by locating, processing and recovering before anything else. (Gaensslen 2013)

Every time somebody touches something, they leave behind a unique signature that forever links them to that object. This link is their fingerprints, which are unique to every person, for no two people have the same set, not even family members or identical twins. Palms and toes also leave prints behind, but these are far less commonly found during crime scene investigations. Therefore, fingerprints provide an identification process that is applicable to background checks, biometric security, mass disaster identification, and most importantly, crime scene investigations. Fingerprints are so differentiated because they are made up of distinct patterns of ridges and furrows on the fingers. The ridges are the “raised” portions of the prints, and the furrows are the “recessed” portions. This perceived uniqueness has led some people to falsely accept fingerprint analysis as absolute scientific fact. Although overall fingerprints are reliable, there are definitely situations where their accuracy can come into question.

Fingerprints are actually quite fascinating! They form on the volar pads of the embryo between the 14 and 16 weeks of gestation, several months before birth and as we all know from CSI and other TV programs, your fingerprints never change. Also if you look carefully at your fingerprints, they resemble energy patterns. The whorl, loop, tented arch and arch are found throughout nature. For example, The Milky Way resembles the whorl; waves of the ocean mirror the loop etc.

Generally, two fingerprints have been looked at utilizing discrete components called minutiae. These elements incorporate focuses in a finger's rubbing skin where edges end (called an edge completion) or split (called an edge bifurcation). Normally, there are on the request of 100 details on a ten print. With a specific end goal to hunt and match fingerprints, the organize area and the introduction of the edge at every minutia point are recorded. Figure 4-1 demonstrates a case of the two sorts of details. The particulars are set apart in the correct picture, and the tails on the markers point toward the minutia's introduction.

Fingerprints are formed during the first, third to fourth months of fetal development. While growing (in the womb) the fingerprint and the ridges will expand. A fingerprint stays the same from when

Capacitive sensors use an array capacitor plates to image the fingerprint. Skin is conductive enough to provide a capacitive coupling with an individual capacitive element on the array. Ridges, being closer to the detector, have a higher capacitance and valleys have a lower capacitance. Some capacitive sensors apply a small voltage to the finger to enhance the signal and create better image contrast.

For a thoroughly refined fingerprint image, there are only three kinds of ridge points: (1) Cn (P) = 1, Sn (P) = 1, called end point; (2) Cn (P) = 2, Sn (P) = 2,3,4, called continuous point; (3) Cn (P) = 3, Sn (P) = 3, called fork. (P, P1, P2, ⋯, Pn), where n is the number of extracted feature points, Pi = (Xi, Yi, Ti, Ai), Xi, Yi denotes the feature point Ti represents the type of the feature point, when the feature point is the end point Ti = 1, when the feature point is the end point Ti = 2; a represents the angle of the feature point, the endpoint angle from the end point as the starting point of the end line, Point angle of Figure 2.3 (b) in the angle a, b, c the smallest of the relative branch of the angle. The

Fingerprint powder is commonly used on non-porous surfaces and on fixed surfaces which cannot be taken to the laboratory (e.g. windows) [Champod & Lennard 2004]. This fine powder is easy to apply with the powder particles adhering instantaneously to the greasy and sticky substances in the latent fingerprint deposit [Champod & Lennard 2004]. However, this method is not sensitive and will only adhere strongly to relatively fresh fingerprints. This is because as the fingerprint ages, the deposit dehydrates and loses its adhesiveness [Champod & Lennard 2004]. There are also limitations with the application of dusting powders. Over-dusting a fingerprint may cover finer details such as scars or smudge the prints, making it difficult to identify

Fingerprint quality assessment routines used inmost fingerprint identification systems, such as the opensource NFIQ2 (NIST Fingerprint Image Quality) softwaremay be useful in detecting altered fingerprints if thecorresponding images are indeed of poor quality. But, notall altered fingerprint images have poor quality. Since existing fingerprint quality assessment algorithms are designed to examine if an imagecontains sufficient information (say, minutiae) for matching,they have limited capability in determining if an image is anatural fingerprint or an altered fingerprint.Altered fingerprints are different from fake fingerprints. The use of fake fingers—made ofglue, latex, or silicone—is a well-publicized method to circumvent fingerprint systems. Altered fingerprints, however, are real fingers that are used to conceal one’s identity in order to evade identification by a biometric system. While fake fingers are typically used by individuals toadopt another person’s identity, altered fingers are used to mask one’s own identity. In order to detect attacks based on fake fingers, many software and hardware solutions have been proposed. However, the problem of altered fingerprints has hitherto not been studied in the literature and there are no reported techniques to identify them. Furthermore, the lack of public databases comprised of altered fingerprint images has