Fingerprints from the Wayback
 

Howdy folks, Cold and rainy here and the shop is closed....
Here's a question...Just how far back in time dose the National fingerprint data base go?? 40 50 years??
I remember as a 10 year old kid (1962) how cool it was to get fingerprinted by the county sheriff deputies at the county fair...oooh! just like the bad guys on TEEVEE.
Flash forward 1972, busted and printed in WYO. for hitchhiking!
Just curious how far back finger print records can go for the database and whether local LE even keeps old files like that for 40+ years.
Any insight?
I did a google search...zippo.

Re: Fingerprints from the Wayback
 

Re: Fingerprints from the Wayback
 

It is doubtful they even know where they are. 40 years is long time. files get placed in boxes and put in a storage room. Not that I want them to have my prints, but it is probably not a big concern.

Re: Fingerprints from the Wayback
 

They will keep the records forever.....
Unless damaged or lost some way..

Re: Fingerprints from the Wayback
 

When in doubt wear gloves. :s1:

Re: Fingerprints from the Wayback
 

http://www.fbi.gov/hq/cjisd/iafis.htm

Anyone who thinks that giving fingerprints for background checks/bonding/notary/CCW is no big deal should think again.

I have a fingerprint examiners training manual. "The Science of Fingerprints"

It truly is no more complicated than guesswork. It's no more scientific than "if it looks like a match it's a match."

"Minutiae" is just fancy talk for "points of reference."

The evidence has never undergone any sort of independant statistical scrutity to determine how truly unique fingerprints are, and errors are common. Particularly when it comes to "partial latent print" examination.

The FBI claims that training is the problem. Bullshit. The problem is: fingerprints are a pseudo science just like arson investigation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fingerprint
http://www.livescience.com/strangene..._mistakes.html

Take a sharpie and mark 12 dots on an uninflated balloon and put it in your scanner. Now reposition and rescan that balloon several times.

Now import those scans in to photoshop, and "onion skin" transparency them.

Now draw circles around the margin of error on those dots.

What the FBI has essentially done is figured an approximate estimated range of dislocation for those dots due to skin's elastic nature, and then ramped up their minutiae standard until they stopped having collisions within their database.

That's what they consider a "match." is just the best fit out of a number of results that got spit back at them.

Because a computer did the guessing: that somehow makes it accurate? Impartial maybe, but there's no assurance that the match isn't coincidental.


Then you have the ease by which a "stamp" can be fabricated to leave latent prints of any person who goes in to public without gloves on.

You didn't kill that hooker? You say you were in a movie theatre? Can anybody verify you were in that movie theatre and not the hotel room down the street? It was dark? That's convienent. We have your prints on the murder weapon. You were drunk? You blacked out that day? You may have killed the hooker and not realized it? You have my simpathy: give this guy the chair.

All of the above assumes the cops are doing their jobs. Keep in mind they are government workers. Yeah, now you should be scared. Most false matches with fingerprints are the result of overloaded crime labs from the war on drugs combined with the CSI effect.

Lab errors are scary common, with overzealous self-deception of a cop being "certain" of someone's guilt, or desire to "get the guilty bastard" even if it means falsifying evidence.

Law enforcement peer pressure combined with a lack of impartial crime labs all come together to make for a situation where innocent men are met with rolling eyes and sarcasm when their claims of innocence are up against conventional wisdom and blind faith in forensics techniques.


The good news: it's never been so easy to get rid of an obnoxious coworker or meddling whistleblower by framing them for a crime to discredit them.

Something as simple as a burned CD full of child pornography that has been handled by them may be enough in an environment where everyone has been fingerprinted.

Biometric locks on the computer lab? Fake their fingerprint while they're in the bathroom and steel all the computers.

Thank god for laser printers and gummi bears.

Re: Fingerprints from the Wayback
 

Thanks Morganchaser, Sounds like that national data base has alot of Junk science.
My data collection idea was that the FBI collected print info from states and counties.

Re: Fingerprints from the Wayback
 

Having worked with the NCIC as far back as 1973 I can say without a doubt that if the local sheriff sent your fingerprints to be checked by the FBI in 1972 they are still on file regardless of what people may say. If they only took them locally and didn't send them in to check on you then sure I would think that they were probably lost or misplaced. They (FBI) never "throw away any fingerprint". My fingerprints taken for military service are
"STILL" on file. The FBI also started a DNA database.

Re: Fingerprints from the Wayback
 

In Cal, when you apply/ renew drivers license

also when buying a gun..........I had to do a thumprint TWICE this week....MFERS!.

probably need to give it out to buy ammo soon