FBI Fingerprint Identification in the United States
Federal Bureau of Investigation: Law Enforcement Services: Fingerprint Identification
Introduction to FBI Fingerprint Identification
Every person has a unique set of fingerprints, a fact that allows police officers to identify suspected criminals from fingerprints found at a crime scene. The FBI serves as the central repository for fingerprint records in the United States. It has on file about 250 million sets of fingerprints representing about 74 million people (both criminal and civilian), the largest collection in the world. These fingerprints are stored in digital form in the FBI’s Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS). Using this system, law enforcement agencies submit fingerprint images electronically; IAFIS searches its huge database for a match and responds with an identification if one exists. The identification process takes less than two hours, instead of the weeks required under the previous semiautomated system.
In addition to conducting fingerprint identification for law enforcement, the FBI processes requests from other organizations when required by law. For example, FBI fingerprint checks may be required of people applying for employment as a teacher, child-care provider, or government worker. About half of all fingerprint checks are noncriminal.
The FBI’s fingerprint collection began in 1924 with about 810,000 sets of arrest fingerprints. These were consolidated from the Justice Department’s fingerprint collection, maintained at a federal prison in Leavenworth, Kansas, and from the collection of the International Association of Chiefs of Police. In the following years, as local and state law enforcement agencies forwarded fingerprint records to the FBI, its criminal identification data increased greatly. In 1932 the FBI began exchanging identification data with the law enforcement agencies of more than 80 foreign countries and with agencies in U.S. territories.” (1)
Resources
Notes and References
- Information about FBI Fingerprint Identification in the Encarta Online Encyclopedia
Guide to FBI Fingerprint Identification
In this Section
Federal Bureau of Investigation, Federal Bureau of Investigation Structure, FBI Jurisdiction and Investigative Responsibilities, FBI Agents, Law Enforcement Services, FBI Law Enforcement Services (including FBI Fingerprint Identification, FBI Laboratory, FBI Criminal Profiling, FBI Police Training, National Crime Information Center and Crime Statistics), FBI History (including FBI Early Years, Hoover Reforms, FBI in the World War II and Postwar Era, FBI Antiradical Activities, FBI Reform, Ruby Ridge, FBI Under Freeh and September 11 Attacks), FBI and the Patriot Act and National Lawyers Guild.