Are your fingerprints on file?

[J.A.Sucker]

[ QUOTE ]
They take your thumbprint when you get a driver's license in Colorado.

[/ QUOTE ]

Do your crimes in Wyoming. They don't have computers there.

[AceLuby]

[ QUOTE ]
I've been watching too much CSI and reading too many mysteries lately. They'll always mention AFIS, the Automated Fingerprint Identification System as a way to identify unknown persons.

[/ QUOTE ]

BTW, this doesn't exist IRL. There is no centralized computer with everyone's fingerprint, and there isn't a computer that can take a single whole fingerprint (none the less a partial) and find the person, or really even get a small group of people.

Fingerprints are all done by hand and are rarely used in any cases unless there is a lot of other evidence, which it shouldn't be necessary anyway. It is completely subjective.

They do file them, but there is no 'database' where a program will select the match based on another print.

This is the main reason why I started hating crime dramas, every story is based on this non-existant program and database.

[gusmahler]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I've been watching too much CSI and reading too many mysteries lately. They'll always mention AFIS, the Automated Fingerprint Identification System as a way to identify unknown persons.

[/ QUOTE ]

BTW, this doesn't exist IRL.

[/ QUOTE ]Really? You should probably correct http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automat...ication_System then.

(I'm not trying to be sarcastic. I have no idea what exists or not.)

[CORed]

I'm a federal employee, and they took a full set when I started with the government, so I assume they are on file. I was also arrested once (failure to appear on an emissions sticker violation, which had to be the about the most trivial thing one can actually be put in jail for), and they took a full set then (that was before I worked for the feds).

[wiper]

yep, bci check for teachers.

i think about that every time i throw an empty beer bottle onto the highway from my car...

[Brocktoon]

[ QUOTE ]
Fingerprints are all done by hand

[/ QUOTE ]

What is this supposed to mean? Are you disputing that fingerprints are taken electronically and filed into computer databases?

[bobbyi]

Even if the fully automated lookup system doesn't exist yet, I'm sure it will soon.

If so, I'll be in there. Thanks Goldman Sachs!

[ClevelandWasp]

Ohio Bar Exam; I assume they forwarded them on to the giant electronic database that may or may not exist.

[traz]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I've been watching too much CSI and reading too many mysteries lately. They'll always mention AFIS, the Automated Fingerprint Identification System as a way to identify unknown persons.

[/ QUOTE ]

BTW, this doesn't exist IRL. There is no centralized computer with everyone's fingerprint, and there isn't a computer that can take a single whole fingerprint (none the less a partial) and find the person, or really even get a small group of people.

Fingerprints are all done by hand and are rarely used in any cases unless there is a lot of other evidence, which it shouldn't be necessary anyway. It is completely subjective.

They do file them, but there is no 'database' where a program will select the match based on another print.

This is the main reason why I started hating crime dramas, every story is based on this non-existant program and database.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wait, what? So I can stop wearing gloves and just use my bare hands?

[Jeff W]

[ QUOTE ]
I vaguely remember getting my prints taken in kindergarten for no particular reason.

[/ QUOTE ]