Page 183 - Automated Fingerprint Identification Systems (AFIS)

168 AUTOMATED FINGERPRINT IDENTIFICATION SYSTEMS

The state AFIS systems do communicate through a hierarchy with IAFIS, but
they do not communicate with each other directly. States can send inquiries to
the FBI’s Interstate Identification Index (III). If a record is found, the state
holding the record forwards the criminal history to the FBI, and the FBI for-
wards the criminal history back to the inquiring state.
Currently, one state cannot directly search records on another state’s AFIS
system. This has particular significance in the latent print community, since the
lack of direct access limits latent print searches on the local or state AFIS system.
This scenario is not entirely different from the early days of information
exchange in the financial sector. When the banking industry began electronic
processing, customers moved from paper transactions to electronic transactions
within the bank. It became possible to check account balances and withdraw
money through credit cards and debit cards. Telephone banking emerged, and
now there are virtual banks that have no brick-and-mortar buildings for cus-
tomer transactions. It is possible to view an account from any location where
there is a phone, a computer, or ATM access.
Banks that are competitors in many of their business transactions find it prof-
itable to be cooperative in certain transactions and share data. Consider the
following. A visitor from the United States travels to Paris. Instead of taking U.S.
dollars to the currency exchange, the visitor finds an ATM nearby on Blvd. St.
Michele. The visitor inserts the debit card, selects English as the preferred lan-
guage, follows the English instructions, and withdraws several hundred dollars’
worth of Euros. The visitor’s credit union debits the account by the equivalent
amount in U.S. dollars, plus the interchange fee. By allowing a withdrawal
from an ATM on Blvd. St. Michele in Paris (in Euros), the bank that owns the
ATM collects a fee. In addition, the network collects a fee, the visitor’s credit
union collects a fee, and the visitor receives cash in the local currency with
assurances that the transaction is private and secure. Plus, the exchange rate is
better than that found at the local currency exchange. The financial system is
interoperable.
AFIS systems have not yet reached that level of cooperation and integration.
There are standards in place for the collection and transmission of tenprint
records and images to the FBI, and AFIS vendors use these standards and spec-
ifications when building the individual AFIS systems. However, local and state
systems may not be able to communicate and share information because they
have not completely embraced the standards in their internal processing and
thus are unable to communicate with each other. More importantly, states have
not found political and economic advantages to expend the large sums needed
to make these systems interoperable.
Now a return to the banking analogy. Before the advent of ATMs and elec-
tronic funds, each bank had its own method of recording transactional data. It