ATS: Fingerprinting the masses

Originally posted by Ycon
Like with the seatbelt law, at first they just said buckle up for your safety and now it's manditory or get a ticket.

Originally posted by JoeDoaks
Ycon, searched and didn't see your thread- same stuff

Originally posted by GradyPhilpott
My fingerprints have been on file with the FBI since I was seventeen with no problems whatsoever. I have been fingerprinted for employment purposes at least twice in the intervening years without a single problem.

[edit on 05/1/15 by GradyPhilpott]

The new policy, which took effect Dec. 30, is described as voluntary.

Urban said the department was already bringing in people for fingerprinting if they couldn't show valid photo identification or driver's licenses or if officers had reason to doubt their identity.

Originally posted by Skadi_the_Evil_Elf
Thats because you volunteered them to be taken when you enlisted.

[...]

You may not consider it a problem, but thats because you offered your fingerprints. Not everyone wants to give the govornment thier personal data like fingerprinting and such. It really is a violation of our rights and should be stopped!

crime and clues
Fingerprints are one of the best forms of physical evidence. A fingerprint can conclusively identify both offenders and victims. State wide, and soon, nation wide databases are available for rapid computerized searching. There are a number of methods of processing for fingerprints, some of best can be found below.

Findlaw editorial
At the same time, however, the underlying issue exposes a well-kept secret of our legal system: It is pervaded by unjustified assumptions. It turns out that reliance on fingerprint evidence is justified. However, as a few other examples will illustrate, much of the law is based on nothing more than guesswork.

the government asked Judge Pollak to reconsider his ruling. Plaza I had been decided based upon the transcript of a similar motion in a different case. For Plaza II, however, Judge Pollak listened to the live testimony of some of the world's leading fingerprint experts in order to resolve the government's motion for reconsideration.

In the end, Judge Pollak changed his mind because the live testimony revealed that the FBI had in fact conducted a considerable number of tests to determine the reliability of fingerprint evidence. Evidence of the results of these tests allowed Judge Pollak to answer two of the basic Daubert questions in the affirmative: The method had indeed been tested, and its error rate was indeed low.

US v. Plaza, Acosta, and Rodriguez, Cr. No. 98-362-10, 11, 12
by tradition, latent print examiners in the United States have required a match of at least six to eight characteristics to show identity, but most experts prefer at least ten to twelve; in English courts 14 to 16 matches are required for
identity

this court accepts, arguendo, Mr. Meagher’s response to the question whether “you have an opinion as to what the error rate is for the work that you do, latent print examinations”: “As applied to the scientific methodology, it’s zero.” Test. Meagher, Tr. July 8, 1999, at 156.
-further-
It is the practitioner error rate that affects, for better or worse, the reliability of the fingerprint identification testimony on which the government seeks to have the jury base some aspects of its verdicts.

As previously noted supra, Part I.B, Mr. Meagher had conducted a survey in which he sent Byron Mitchell’s ten-print card and alleged latent fingerprints to state agencies. The ten-print card was to be compared with the state fingerprint records: the result—that only Pennsylvania, the state in which Mitchell had been incarcerated, reported a “hit”—was significant confirmation of the uniqueness of fingerprints. The other aspect of the Meagher survey—arequest that state agencies determine whether the latent printsmatched the known Mitchell prints—offered scant support for the accuracy of fingerprint identification. Nine of the thirty-four responding agencies did not make an identification in the first instance.

23 Mr. Meagher followed up by sending photographic enlargements of the prints in a plastic sleeve, on which the level two Galton detail information was marked. Mr. Meagher asked the nine agencies to reconsider their initial responses, emphasizing that the survey was being prepared for a Daubert hearing. All nine agencies changed their responses and made a positive identification. Test. Meagher, Tr. July 8, 1999, at 119–21. Mr. Meagher explained his resubmission of the fingerprints to the nine agencies:

The defendants also point out that in proficiency examinations that were given to fingerprint examiners beginning in 1995, the error rates have been alarmingly high. In 1995, fewer than half of the 156 participating examiners—44%—correctly identified all five latent prints that were being tested, while 31% of the examiners made erroneous identifications. Possession of Truth, 46 J. Forensic Identification 521, 524 (1996) (Def. Ex. 2).While the results had improved somewhat by 1998, only 58% of the examiners correctly identified all the matching prints and did not make incorrect identifications. Latent Prints Examination Report No. 9808, Forensic Testing Program 2 (Def. Ex. 3). As with the Mitchell survey, these proficiency examination results may be taken as somewhat suggestive of practitioner error. However, it should be stressed that these results, standing alone, can hardly be regarded as significant evidence of what the “rate of error,” in the Daubert sense, may be. 509 U.S. at 594.

-38-
a. Galton Point Minima
Various witnesses at the Mitchell hearing testified that the ACE-V process is the
method in general use among fingerprint examiners in the United States. However, the application of this method, in particular whether a minimum number of Galton points must be identified before a match can be declared, varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Sergeant Ashbaugh testified that the United Kingdom employs a sixteen-point minimum, Australia mandates that twelve points be found in common, and Canada uses no minimum point standard. Test. Ashbaugh, Tr. July 7, 1999, at 144–45. In the United States, state jurisdictions set their own minimum point standards, while the FBI has no minimum number that must be identified to declare an “absolutely him” match, Test. Meagher, Tr. July 8, 1999, at 105, but does rely on a twelve-point “quality assurance” standard

There are no mandatory qualification standards for individuals to become fingerprint examiners,26 nor is there a uniform certification process. Mr. Meagher, for example, testified that while some FBI fingerprint examiners are certified by the International Association for Identification (IAI),27 he is not certified by the IAI, but by the FBI. Test.

26 According to one critic:
Traditionally, fingerprint training has centered around a type of apprenticeship, tutelage, or on-the-job training, in its best form, and essentially a type of self study, in its worst. Many training programs are the “look and learn” variety, and aside from some basic classroom instruction in pattern interpretation and classification methods, are often impromptu sessions dictated more by the schedule and duties of the trainer than the needs of the student. Such apprenticeship is most often expressed in terms of duration, not in specific goals and objectives, and often end with a subjective assessment that the trainer is ready.

Since the court finds that ACE-V does not meet Daubert’s testing, peer review, and standards criteria, and that information as to ACE-V’s rate of error is in limbo, the expected conclusion would be that the government should be precluded from presenting any fingerprint testimony. But that conclusion—apparently putting at naught a century of judicial acquiescence in fingerprint identification processes—would be unwarrantably heavy-handed.

But no expert witness for any party will be permitted to testify that, in the opinion of the witness, a particular latent print is—or is not—the print of a particular person.