| Author | Message | ||
     Ernie Hamm |
Manual searching for fingerprints is a person actually going through files to locate a card. Henry's Classification System permitted fingerprint record cards to be 'classified' and then pigeon-holed in a file. The system was later extended through the FBI's modification and extension of the Henry System and the cards were filed in drawers. A Fingerprint Technician could classify incoming cards and then search the files for the same classification (if an identification was needed) or file the new card in the appropriate area of the area. Computers can now classify the inked prints, under strict guidelines, and can search the files for matching classifications. The results are then reviewed by a fingerprint technician. The end result is still manual, but the tedious search procedure can be accomplished with computers. | ||
| clare |
what is the diffence between manual and computer generating systems for finger printing? | ||
| Ernie Hamm |
Automated Fingerprint Identification Systems (AFIS) actually saw their beginnings in 1934 when the FBI, recognizing a need for handling their ever increasing fingerprint file, experimented with the use of data punch cards. Descriptive information about the fingerprints was encoded and could later be searched with card sorting machines. The FBI later abandoned this effort, but the punch card technique was used by some departments for local files, smaller and more manageable. These were ‘automated’ identification systems. The FBI initiated the impetus for research on image capture, analysis, storage and retrieval of fingerprints in the early 1960’s. Various jurisdictions, National Police Agency-Japan, Home Office-New Scotland Yard, RCMP-Canada; also started developing automated systems. Most of this development was for ten-print files, one that would analyze and encode patterns and their arrangement on a record fingerprint card. Such a system was later installed in 1972 at FBI Identification division. While the work was going on for a 10-print automated system, there was also research being conducted in 1965 for the New York State Information and Identification on minutiae based system that could be used for single fingerprints. In a minutiae based system, the computer encodes the individual characteristics in a single fingerprint, which are the features used to establish positive identifications. This research ended in 1974 for budgeting reasons. The National Police Agency of Japan initiated their inquiry into automated fingerprint recognition using fingerprint minutiae in 1969 with NEC. In the coming years, NEC worked with FBI and Home Office in London, which had been working on a system for New Scotland Yard from the late 1960’s, to eventually develop a minutiae based fingerprint identification. It was initially installed in Tokyo in 1981 and in San Francisco in 1983. Other minutiae based systems were developed and a number of different systems are in use throughout the world. The ONLY reliable identification is the individual examiner with manual comparison between known and unknown. AFIS only provides possibilities that it finds in its database using a system of complex algorithms. It uses previously encoded information on a single record fingerprint on a record fingerprint card and the encoded information from a single crime scene fingerprint, which most likely is a smaller area of detail compared with a rolled fingerprint on a fingerprint card. The system only returns a list of numerically rated candidates and the individual examiner must make the final determination. The examiner may find an identification among the early positions on the list or far down on the list. Of course, this automated list is much more desirable than a manual search of fingerprint files made by an individual. Such a manual search might be possible in a small local collection, but it would be a time consuming project and an impossible task with a major collection. There are no automated fingerprint identification systems for latent prints associated with a crime. Instead of AFIS, a better description might be CAFIS, as you alluded to, Computer Aided Fingerprint Identification System. | ||
| Jim Snyder |
When did computer aided finger print analysis started? What are some of the advantages over manual analysis and which is more accurate? |
