Page 152 - Automated Fingerprint Identification Systems (AFIS)

CURRENT ISSUES 137

This turn of events saved money by relegating fingerprinting tasks to lower
paid personnel. However, in some instances management failed to understand
that the capture of the finger impressions, even with the livescan machines, was
very much dependent on the operator. Constant pressure, a nail-to-nail roll,
and image centering are just as necessary to the process whether it is performed
by sworn personnel or clerical staff. Mistakes or lack of definition at this phase
of the process must be avoided if AFIS is to meet its potential, particularly in
latent print identifications.
From its creation in the criminal arena, AFIS began to move into the civil
arena. There are a number of reasons for this migration, including the success
in making identifications of arrestees and the increased use of these systems on
vetting job applicants. The use of AFIS in the criminal or forensic arena under-
wrote much of the development costs of this new technology, and the millions
of dollars invested in its development produced unexpected benefits. Govern-
ment agencies found the technology valuable because of the increase of both
throughput and the accuracy of identifications. There were significant reduc-
tions in staff costs as well, as the tedious work performed by clerks was gradu-
ally being taken over by computers.
The introduction of AFIS systems into applications that did not rely on a law
enforcement database brought a new definition to the term “civil” applications.
When AFIS was exclusively the domain of government law enforcement agen-
cies, long-established terms such as “criminal” and “civil” had distinct mean-
ings. A criminal search was an image search on someone who had been arrested
or who was in some way connected with a criminal activity, while a civil search
referred to a search on a person whose finger images were being compared
with the same database used in the criminal searches, but the purpose was for
a job application, not an arrest. In the case of the criminal arrest search, if a
match was not found, the new record was almost always kept and the criminal
history file was updated with the new information. For the job applicant, the
record might be returned after the search. For the criminal there was no charge
for the search; for the civil applicant, there might be a processing fee. In both
instances a rap sheet would be sent to the submitting authority.
As the use of AFIS began to appear in applications that did not tie to a CCH
file, the term “civil” began to evolve. AFIS split into “forensic” applications,
which searched a law enforcement database, and “civil” applications, which
were benefit related and less complex. The forensic applications are in the area
of criminal identification, i.e., identifications that may be tied to a CCH data-
base, including persons arrested for crimes as well as those who were finger-
printed as part of a job application. The forensic applications can be further
subdivided into tenprint identification with a criminal component, tenprint