In recent decades, fingerprint identification has moved from police files into everyday life as a biometric security measure. The first use of fingerprints…

As fingerprint bureaus grew in each country, the need for international standards emerged so that agencies could share and compare records globally. Early…

As fingerprint use became routine, agencies began building large-scale fingerprint databases to store and search prints. The first official fingerprint bureau in the…

Once pioneers like Galton, Vucetich, and Henry had proven fingerprints’ utility, the method had to gain acceptance in courts and legal systems. The…

By the early 1900s, fingerprints were competing with the Bertillon anthropometric system as the preferred method of criminal identification. A turning point came…

By the end of the 19th century, police in various parts of the world were using fingerprints, but a unifying classification was needed…

While Galton was publishing in England, fingerprinting also took hold across the Atlantic. In 1891, Juan Vucetich, a statistician working for the police…

In the late 19th century, British scientist Sir Francis Galton took Faulds’ and Herschel’s observations to the next level by applying statistical analysis….

By the 17th century, European scientists began examining the structure of human skin. In 1687, Italian anatomist Marcello Malpighi studied the tiny ridges…

In the mid-19th century, Sir William James Herschel, a British officer in colonial India, made the first practical use of fingerprints in modern…

Centuries before scientific study, ancient civilizations used fingerprints for practical purposes. In Babylon and ancient China, people pressed fingertip impressions into clay tablets…