Page 58 - Automated Fingerprint Identification Systems (AFIS)

HISTOR Y OF AUTOMATED FINGERPRINT IDENTIFICATION SYSTEMS 43

• An AFIS that would handle approximately ten times the daily transaction rate
against a repository more than five times the largest currently in existence
would have to be built. Recall that this was at a time when PCs were running
at only 50 to 66 megahertz (MHz).

The plan, approved by the APB’s ID Revitalization Task Force in August 1989,
called for an Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS)
based on back file conversion of more than 30 million fingerprint cards into
digital images, an image transmission network, standards, response times under
2 hours for arrest cycles, soft copy verification of candidates, growth margins,
electronic responses, semi-automated processing of dispositions, etc. The rec-
ommendations of the task force fell into three categories:

1. The electronic transmission of identification and criminal history data.
2. Substantial improvements in the ID’s AFIS capabilities.
3. Major enhancements to the ID’s criminal history records system.

It should be noted that the plan and the subsequent congressional direction
called for building a large-scale tenprint system with a more limited latent print
capability. This was due to the fact that most crime is local, and there already
existed numerous local and state AFIS systems on which latent searches could
be made quite productively. This fact did not calm the fears of the ID’s Latent
Fingerprint Section (now in the FBI Laboratory Division) that the standards
being considered would impact their ability to perform their task effectively.
In December 1989, at an APB meeting, Bonino presented the task force’s
main objectives for the ID revitalization effort: 3

1. To improve the timeliness, accuracy, and completeness of all ID responses.
2. To reinstitute the FBI’s leadership role in criminal identification matters.
3. To ensure the ID’s status as a “role model for police agencies in criminal
identification matters.”

At that time, the ID was housed in the J. Edgar Hoover Building in Washing-
ton, DC. One ID room, which housed the master fingerprint file, contained all
30 million fingerprint cards filed by the Henry System in over 1,000 file cabi-
nets. At peak times, over 500 people per shift worked in this room, filing new
cards, checking candidates from the existing AFIS, and so on. There was no
available space to install the new system while continuing to provide service. So

3 Minutes of Meeting of the National Crime Information Center Advisory Policy Board, December
6–7, 1989.