The History of
Fingerprints
Updated 11 March 2013
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Why Fingerprint
Identification?
Fingerprints offer an
infallible means of personal identification. That is
the essential explanation for fingerprints having
replaced other methods of establishing the identities
of criminals reluctant to admit previous
arrests. 1
The science of
fingerprint Identification stands out among all other
forensic sciences for many reasons, including the
following:
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Has
served governments worldwide for over 100 years to
provide accurate identification of criminals. No
two fingerprints have ever been found alike in
many billions of human and automated computer
comparisons. Fingerprints are the very basis
for criminal history foundation at every police
agency on earth.
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Established
the first forensic professional organization, the
International Association for Identification
(IAI), in 1915.
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Established
the first professional certification program for
forensic scientists, the IAI's Certified Latent
Print Examiner (CLPE) program (in 1977), issuing
certification to those meeting stringent criteria
and revoking certification for serious errors such
as erroneous identifications.
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Remains
the most commonly used forensic evidence worldwide
- in most jurisdictions fingerprint examination
cases match or outnumber all other forensic
examination casework combined.
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Continues
to expand as the premier method for positively
identifying persons, with tens of thousands of
persons added to fingerprint repositories daily in
America alone - far outdistancing similar
databases in growth.
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Worldwide,
fingerprints harvested from crime "scenes lead to
more suspects and generate more evidence in court
than all other forensic laboratory techniques
combined. 2"
Other visible human
characteristics tend to change - fingerprints do
not. Barring injuries or surgery causing deep
scarring, or diseases such as leprosy damaging the
formative layers of friction ridge skin (injuries,
scarring and diseases tend to exhibit telltale
indicators of unnatural change), finger and palm print
features have never been shown to move about or change
their unit relationship throughout the life of a
person.
In earlier
civilizations, branding and even maiming were used to
mark the criminal for what he or she was. The thief
was deprived of the hand which committed the thievery.
Ancient Romans employed the tattoo needle to identify
and prevent desertion of mercenary soldiers from their
ranks.
Before the mid-1800s,
law enforcement officers with extraordinary visual
memories, so-called "camera eyes," identified
previously arrested offenders by sight. Photography
lessened the burden on memory but was not the answer
to the criminal identification problem. Personal
appearances change.
Around 1870, French
anthropologist Alphonse Bertillon devised a system to
measure and record the dimensions of certain bony
parts of the body. These measurements were reduced to
a formula which, theoretically, would apply only to
one person and would not change during his/her adult
life.
The Bertillon System
was generally accepted for thirty years. But it never
recovered from the events of 1903, when a man named
Will West was sentenced to the U.S. Penitentiary at
Leavenworth, Kansas. It was discovered that there was
already a prisoner at the penitentiary at the time,
whose Bertillon measurements were nearly the same, and
his name was William West.
Upon investigation,
there were indeed two men who looked exactly alike.
Their names were Will and William West respectively.
Their Bertillon measurements were close enough to
identify them as the same person. However, a
fingerprint comparison quickly and correctly
identified them as two different people. (Per prison
records discovered later, the West men were apparently
identical twin brothers and each had a record of
correspondence with the same immediate family
relatives.)
Prehistoric
Picture writing of a hand
with ridge patterns was discovered in Nova
Scotia. In ancient Babylon, fingerprints
were used on clay tablets for business
transactions. In ancient China, thumb prints
were found on clay seals.
In 14th century Persia, various official
government papers had fingerprints
(impressions), and one government official, a
doctor, observed that no two fingerprints were
exactly alike.
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Malpighi
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1686 - Malpighi
In 1686, Marcello Malpighi,
an anatomy professor at the University of
Bologna, noted in his treatise; ridges,
spirals and loops in fingerprints. He made no
mention of the value of fingerprints for human
identification. A layer of skin was named
after him; "Malpighi" layer, which is
approximately 1.8mm thick.
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1823 - Purkinje
In 1823, John Evangelist
Purkinje, anatomy professor at the
University of Breslau, published his thesis
discussing nine fingerprint patterns,
but he too made no mention of the value of
fingerprints for personal identification.
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Herschel
Herschel's fingerprints recorded over a
period of 57 years
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1858 - Herschel
The English first began using
fingerprints in July of 1858, when Sir William
James Herschel, Chief Magistrate of the
Hooghly district in Jungipoor, India, first
used fingerprints on native contracts. On a
whim, and without thought toward personal
identification, Herschel had Rajyadhar Konai,
a local businessman, impress his hand print on
a contract.
The idea was merely "...
to frighten [him] out of all thought of
repudiating his signature." The native was
suitably impressed, and Herschel made a
habit of requiring palm prints--and later,
simply the prints of the right Index and
Middle fingers--on every contract made with
the locals. Personal contact with the
document, they believed, made the contract
more binding than if they simply signed it.
Thus, the first wide-scale, modern-day use
of fingerprints was predicated, not upon
scientific evidence, but upon superstitious
beliefs.
As his fingerprint
collection grew, however, Herschel began to
note that the inked impressions could,
indeed, prove or disprove identity. While
his experience with fingerprinting was
admittedly limited, Sir William Herschel's
private conviction that all fingerprints
were unique to the individual, as well as
permanent throughout that individual's life,
inspired him to expand their use.
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1863 - Coulier
Professor Paul-Jean Coulier,
of Val-de-Grâce in Paris, published his
observations that (latent) fingerprints can be
developed on paper by iodine fuming, explains
how to preserve (fix) such developed
impressions and mentions the potential for
identifying suspects' fingerprints by use of a
magnifying glass. 3, 4 |
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Faulds
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1880 - Faulds - First
Latent Print Identification
During the 1870s, Dr. Henry
Faulds, the British Surgeon-Superintendent of
Tsukiji Hospital in Tokyo, Japan, took up the
study of "skin-furrows" after noticing finger
marks on specimens of "prehistoric" pottery. A
learned and industrious man, Dr. Faulds not
only recognized the importance of fingerprints
as a means of identification, but devised a
method of classification as well.
In 1880, Faulds forwarded
an explanation of his classification system
and a sample of the forms he had designed
for recording inked impressions, to Sir
Charles Darwin. Darwin, in advanced age and
ill health, informed Dr. Faulds that he
could be of no assistance to him, but
promised to pass the materials on to his
cousin, Francis Galton.
Also in 1880, Dr. Henry
Faulds published an article in the
Scientific Journal, "Nature" (nature). He
discussed fingerprints as a means of
personal identification, and the use of
printers ink as a method for obtaining such
fingerprints. He is also credited with the
first fingerprint identification of a greasy
fingerprint left on an alcohol bottle.
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1882 - Thompson
In
1882, Gilbert Thompson of the U.S.
Geological Survey in New Mexico, used his
own thumb print on a document to help
prevent forgery. This is the first known
use of fingerprints in the United
States. Click the image below to see
a larger image of an 1882 receipt issued
by Gilbert Thompson to "Lying Bob" in the
amount of 75 dollars.
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1882 - Bertillon
Alphonse Bertillon, a Clerk in the Prefecture
of Police of at Paris, France, devised a
system of classification, known as
Anthropometry or the Bertillon System, using
measurements of parts of the body.
Bertillon's system included measurements
such as head length, head width, length of the
middle finger, length of the left foot;
and length of the forearm from the elbow
to the tip of the middle finger.
In 1888 Bertillon was made Chief of the newly
created Department of Judicial Identity where
he used anthropometry as the primary means of
identification. He later introduced
Fingerprints but relegated them to a secondary
role in the category of special marks.
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Twain (Clemens)
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1883 - Mark Twain (Samuel
L. Clemens)
In Mark Twain's book, "Life
on the Mississippi", a murderer was identified
by the use of fingerprint identification. In a
later book, "Pudd'n Head Wilson", there was a
dramatic court trial on fingerprint
identification. A movie was made from this
book in 1916 and a made-for-TV movie in
1984. |
Galton
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1888 - Galton
Sir Francis Galton, a British
anthropologist and a cousin of Charles Darwin,
began his observations of fingerprints as a
means of identification in the
1880's. |
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1891 - Vucetich
Juan Vucetich, an
Argentine Police Official, began the first
fingerprint files based on Galton pattern
types. At first, Vucetich included the
Bertillon System with the files.
Right Thumb Impression and
Signature of Juan Vucetich
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1892 - Vucetich
& Galton
Juan Vucetich made the
first criminal fingerprint identification in
1892. He was able to identify Francis Rojas,
a woman who murdered her two sons and cut
her own throat in an attempt to place blame
on another. Her bloody print was left
on a door post, proving her identity as the
murderer.
Francis Rojas' Inked Fingerprints
Sir Francis Galton
published his book, "Fingerprints",
establishing the individuality and
permanence of fingerprints. The book
included the first classification system for
fingerprints.
Galton's primary interest
in fingerprints was as an aid in determining
heredity and racial background. While he
soon discovered that fingerprints offered no
firm clues to an individual's intelligence
or genetic history, he was able to
scientifically prove what Herschel and
Faulds already suspected: that fingerprints
do not change over the course of an
individual's lifetime, and that no two
fingerprints are exactly the same. According
to his calculations, the odds of two
individual fingerprints being the same were
1 in 64 billion.
Galton identified the
characteristics by which fingerprints can be
identified. A few of these same
characteristics (minutia) are basically still
in use today, and are sometimes referred to as
Galton Details. |
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Haque
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1897 - Haque & Bose
On 12 June 1897, the
Council of the Governor General of India
approved a committee report that fingerprints
should be used for classification of criminal
records. Later that year, the Calcutta
(now Kolkata) Anthropometric Bureau became the
world's first Fingerprint Bureau.
Working in the Calcutta Anthropometric Bureau
(before it became the Fingerprint Bureau) were
Azizul Haque and Hem Chandra Bose. Haque
and Bose are the two Indian fingerprint
experts credited with primary development of
the Henry System of fingerprint classification
(named for their supervisor, Edward Richard
Henry). The Henry classification system
is still used in English-speaking countries
(primarily as the manual filing system for
accessing paper archive files that have not
been scanned and computerized). |
Henry
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1900 - Henry
The United Kingdom Home
Secretary Office conducted an inquiry into
"Identification of Criminals by Measurement
and Fingerprints." Mr. Edward Richard Henry
(later Sir ER Henry) appeared
before the inquiry committee to explain the
system published in his recent book "The
Classification and Use of Fingerprints."
The committee recommended adoption of
fingerprinting as a replacement for the
relatively inaccurate Bertillon system of
anthropometric measurement, which only
partially relied on fingerprints for
identification.
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1901 - Henry
The
Fingerprint Branch at New Scotland Yard
(London Metropolitan Police) was created in
July 1901 using the Henry System of
Fingerprint Classification.
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1902
First systematic use of
fingerprints in the U.S. by the New York Civil
Service Commission for testing. Dr. Henry P.
DeForrest pioneers U.S. fingerprinting.
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1903
The New York State Prison
system began the first systematic use of
fingerprints in the U.S. for criminals.
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1904
The use of fingerprints began
in Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary in Kansas,
and the St. Louis Police Department. They were
assisted by a Sergeant from Scotland Yard who
had been on duty at the St. Louis World's Fair
Exposition guarding the British Display.
Sometime after the St. Louis World's Fair, the
International Association of Chiefs of Police
(IACP) created America's first national
fingerprint repository, called the National
Bureau of Criminal Identification.
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1905
U.S. Army begins using
fingerprints.
U.S. Department of Justice forms the Bureau of
Criminal Identification in Washington, DC to
provide a centralized reference collection of
fingerprint cards.
Two years later the U.S. Navy started, and was
joined the next year by the Marine Corp.
During the next 25 years more and more law
enforcement agencies join in the use of
fingerprints as a means of personal
identification. Many of these agencies began
sending copies of their fingerprint cards to
the National Bureau of Criminal
Identification, which was established by the
International Association of Police Chiefs. |
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1907
U.S. Navy begins using
fingerprints.
U.S. Department of Justice's Bureau of
Criminal Identification moves to Leavenworth
Federal Penitentiary where it is staffed at
least partially by inmates. |
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1908
U.S. Marine Corps begins
using fingerprints. |
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1915
Inspector
Harry H. Caldwell of the Oakland, California
Police Department's Bureau of Identification
wrote numerous letters to "Criminal
Identification Operators" in August 1915,
requesting them to meet in Oakland for the
purpose of forming an organization to further
the aims of the identification profession. In
October 1915, a group of twenty-two
identification personnel met and initiated the
"International Association for Criminal
Identification" In 1918, the organization was
renamed the International Association
for Identification (IAI) due to
the volume of non-criminal identification work
performed by members. Sir Francis
Galton's right index finger appears in the IAI
logo. The IAI's official publication is
the Journal of Forensic Identification.
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1918
Edmond Locard wrote that
if 12 points (Galton's Details) were the
same between two fingerprints, it would
suffice as a positive identification.
Locard's 12 points seems to have been based
on an unscientific "improvement" over the
eleven anthropometric measurements (arm
length, height, etc.) used to "identify"
criminals before the adoption of
fingerprints.
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1924
In 1924, an act of congress
established the Identification Division of the
FBI. The IACP's National Bureau of Criminal
Identification and the US Justice Department's
Bureau of Criminal Identification consolidated
to form the nucleus of the FBI fingerprint
files.
1946
By 1946, the FBI had
processed 100 million fingerprint cards in
manually maintained files; and by 1971, 200
million cards.
With the introduction of
automated fingerprint identification system
(AFIS) technology, the files were split into
computerized criminal files and manually
maintained civil files. Many of the
manual files were duplicates though, the
records actually represented somewhere in
the neighborhood of 25 to 30 million
criminals, and an unknown number of
individuals in the civil files.
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The Fingerprint Society
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1974
In
1974, four employees of the Hertfordshire
(United Kingdom) Fingerprint Bureau contacted
fingerprint experts throughout the UK and
began organization of that country's first
professional fingerprint organization, the
National Society of Fingerprint Officers.
The organization initially consisted of
only UK experts, but quickly expanded to
international scope and was renamed The Fingerprint Society
in 1977. The initials F.F.S. behind a
fingerprint expert's name indicates they are
recognized as a Fellow of the Fingerprint
Society. The Society hosts annual
educational conferences with speakers and
delegates attending from many countries.
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1977
At New Orleans, Louisiana
on 1 August 1977, delegates to the 62nd
Annual Conference of the International
Association for Identification (IAI) voted
to establish the world's first certification
program for fingerprint experts. Since
1977, the IAI's Latent Print
Certification Board has
proficiency tested thousands of applicants,
and periodically proficiency tests all IAI
Certified Latent Print Examiners (CLPEs).
Contrary to claims (in the
1990s and later) that fingerprint experts
profess their body of practitioners never
make erroneous identifications, the Latent
Print Certification program proposed,
adopted, and in-force since 1977,
specifically recognizes that such mistakes
do sometimes occur, and must be addressed by
the Latent Print Certification
Board.
During the past three
decades, CLPE status has become a
prerequisite for journeyman fingerprint
expert positions in many US state and
federal government forensic laboratories.
IAI CLPE status is considered by many
identification professionals to be a
measurement of excellence.
2012
The world's largest annual
meeting of fingerprint experts is hosted by
the IAI - this year it will be during 22-28
July in Phoenix, Arizona, USA.
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2012
INTERPOL's Automated
Fingerprint Identification System repository
exceeds 150,000 sets fingerprints for
important international criminal records
from 190 member countries. Over 170
countries have 24 x 7 interface ability with
INTERPOL expert
fingerprint services.
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2013 - America's Largest
Database
The largest AFIS
repository in America is operated by
the Department of Homeland Security's US
Visit Program, containing over 120 million
persons' fingerprints, many in the form of
two-finger records. The two-finger
records are non-compliant with FBI and
Interpol standards, but sufficient for
positive identification and valuable for
forensics because index fingers and thumbs
are the most commonly identified crime scene
fingerprints. The US Visit Program has
been migrating from two flat (not rolled)
fingerprints to ten flat fingerprints since
2007. "Fast capture" research will
hopefully enable implementation of ten
"rolled print equivalent" fingerprint
recording (within 15 seconds per person
fingerprinted) in future years.
The largest criminal
fingerprint AFIS repository in America is
the FBI's Integrated AFIS (IAFIS) in
Clarksburg, WV. IAFIS has more than 60
million individual computerized fingerprint
records (both criminal and civil applicant
records). Old paper fingerprint cards
for the civil files are still manually
maintained in a warehouse facility (rented
shopping center space) in Fairmont, WV,
though most enlisted military service member
fingerprint cards received after 1990, and
all military-related fingerprint cards
received after 19 May 2000, have now been
computerized and can be searched internally
by the FBI. In "Next Generation
Identification," the FBI may make civil file
AFIS searches available to US law
enforcement agencies through remote
interface. The FBI is also planning to
expand their automated identification
activities to include other biometrics such
as palm, face, and eventually
iris.
All US states and many large
cities have their own AFIS databases, each
with a subset of fingerprint records that is
not stored in any other database. Many
also store and search palmprints. Law
enforcement fingerprint interface standards
are important to enable sharing records and
reciprocal searches to identify
criminals.
Interpol,
the European Union's Prüm
Treaty, the FBI's Next Generation
Identification and other initiatives seek to
improve cross-jurisdiction sharing (probing
and sharing/pushing) of important finger and
palm print data to identify
criminals.
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2013 - World's Largest
Database
As of February 2013, the Unique
Identification Authority of India
operates the world's largest fingerprint
(multi-modal biometric) system, with over 200
million fingerprint,
face and iris biometric records.
UIAI plans to
collect as many as 600 million multi-modal
record by the end of 2014. India's
Unique Identification project is also known as
Aadhaar, a word meaning "the foundation" in
several Indian languages. Aadhaar is a
voluntary program, with the ambitious goal of
eventually providing reliable national ID
documents for most of India's 1.2 billion
residents.
With a database many times larger than any
other in the world, Aadhaar's ability to
leverage automated fingerprint and iris
modalities (and potentially automated face
recognition) enables rapid and reliable
automated searching and identification
impossible to accomplish with fingerprint
technology alone, especially when searching
children and elderly residents' fingerprints.
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Fingerprinting Merit Badge
1
Some of the above wording is credited to the writing
of Greg Moore, from his previous fingerprint history
page at http://www.brawleyonline.com/consult/history.htm
(no longer there). Also, David L. von Minden, Ph.D
helped correct typos his students kept cutting and
pasting into their homework.
2 Interpol, "General Position on Fingerprint
Evidence," by the Interpol European Expert Group
on Fingerprint Identification, at www.interpol.int/public/Forensic/fingerprints/WorkingParties/IEEGFI/ieegfi.asp#val
3 Coulier, P.-J. Les vapeurs d'iode employees
comme moyen de reconnaitre l'alteration des ecritures.
In L'Annee scientiJique et industrielle; Figuier, L.
Ed.; Hachette, 1863; 8, pp 157-160 at http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k7326j
(as of March 2010).
4 Margot, Pierre and Quinche, Nicolas,
"Coulier, Paul-Jean (1824-1890): A Precursor in the
History of Fingermark Detection and Their Potential
Use for Identifying Their Source (1863)", Journal of
forensic identification, 60 (2), March-April 2010, pp.
129-134, (published by the International Association
for Identification).
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