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Fingerprint
Fingerprints are the oldest biometric known. Fingerprints form in the womb and, barring injury, remain unique and consistent throughout life. For almost 150 years analyses of fingerprints have been an important part of criminal investigations and identification of individuals. But until recently, the capture of fingerprints has been more art than science, and their comparison largely restricted to highly trained specialists. Using small digital imagining devices that can be carried in police vehicles or even built into computer keyboards, fingerprints can now be captured, digitized into mathematical descriptions, and compared by computers against databases. Whereas once fingerprints had to be captured with ink on paper and sent through the mail or faxed to central repositories for specialized study, the entire process can now be done in near real time. The uniqueness of fingerprints and the sheer size of existing databases, numbering in the tens of millions, are leading toward their use in applications from biometric passports to ATMs.
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