Fingerprints and human inspection: a forensics perspective
This chapter has purposely been written with the lay person in mind. However, we need to be aware that whatever techniques are employed to capture and match fingerprint templates, a human intervention may well be required, which will vary in its approach depending on the age of the donor, or other factors that may influence the success rate of the particular system being used. I believe that we need to examine the effects of human intervention more robustly in terms of the effects of ageing. Whatever system is used and whatever hardware and software we employ, there is always going to be a trade-off between obtaining the best capture and the best chance of an accurate match or non-match. I have pointed out that human friction ridges develop early in the foetus development and persist long after death when compared against other human features. We understand that humans age in much the same way, but that their genetic make up and the physical conditions they are exposed to vary make prediction of ageing effects difficult to forecast in any empirical manner. The varying requirements of human identification using fingerprint matching technologies display differing sensibilities to the effects of ageing, and the `risks' involved also differ according to the function of that system. There are on-going studies relating to the ageing of fingerprints and these must be embraced and performed in a manner that allows current and future vendors and users of systems (AFIS and civil biometric) to understand fully what effects ageing will have on system performance and how best to maximise that performance. But there are obstacles that need to be overcome before we can arrive at a position whereby our data sets are truly deemed to be adequate and fit for the purposes of study. Above all we need to be aware that this is a complex issue, but one related to a simple premise, i.e. whatever we do, we cannot avoid getting older!
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