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.
1686 - Malpighi
In
1686, Marcello Malpighi, a professor of anatomy at the University of
Bologna, noted in his treatise; ridges, spirals and loops in
fingerprints. He made no mention of their value as a tool for individual
identification. A layer of skin was named after him; "Malpighi" layer,
which is approximately 1.8mm thick.
1823 - Purkinje
In
1823, John Evangelist Purkinje, a professor of anatomy at the
University of Breslau, published his thesis discussing 9 fingerprint
patterns, but he too made no mention of the value of fingerprints for
personal identification.
1858 - Hershel
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.
1880 - Faulds
During
the 1870's, 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. 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.
1882 - Thompson
In
1882, Gilbert Thompson of the U.S. Geological Survey in New Mexico,
used his own thumb print on a document to 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.
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 main means of
identification. He later introduced Fingerprints but relegated them to a
secondary role in the category of special marks.
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.
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.
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.
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 all English-speaking countries (primarily as the
manual filing system for accessing paper archive files that have not
been scanned and computerized).
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 E.R. 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.
1901 - Henry
The
Fingerprint Branch at New Scotland Yard (London Metropolitan Police)
was created in July 1901 using the Henry System of Classification.
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.
1903
The New York State Prison system began the first systematic use of fingerprints in the U.S. for criminals.
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.
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.
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.
1908
U.S. Marine Corps begins using fingerprints.
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, asking 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.
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.
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.
The Fingerprint Society
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. F.F.S. used 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.
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). IAI
CLPE status is considered by many identification professionals to be a
measurement of excellence. 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.
2005
INTERPOL's
Automated Fingerprint Identification System repository exceeds 50,000
sets fingerprints for important international criminal records from 184
member countries. Over 170 countries have 24 x 7 interface ability with
INTERPOL expert fingerprint services.
2009
The
largest AFIS repository in America is operated by the Department of
Homeland Security's US Visit Program, containing over 100 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 funded by the US government will enable
implementation of ten "rolled print equivalent" fingerprint recording
(within 15 seconds per person fingerprinted) in future years.
The
largest tenprint AFIS repository in America is the FBI's Integrated
AFIS (IAFIS) in Clarksburg, WV. IAFIS has more than 54 million
individual computerized fingerprint records for known criminals. 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, iris and face.
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. Thus, law enforcement fingerprint interface standards are
very important to enable sharing records and reciprocal searches for
identifying criminals.
