-
Archaeologists discovered fingerprints pressed into clay tablet contracts
-
Wrote a paper describing the patterns that he saw on human hands under the microscope, including the presence of ridges. This was the earliest record of the study of patterns on human hands.
-
Described nine distinct fingerprint patterns, including loops, spirals, circles, and double whorls
-
Began the collecting of fingerprints. He noted the patterns were unique to each person and were not altered by age
-
Created a way to identify criminals, called Bertillonage which was first used to identify a repeating offender.
-
Sir Francis Galton and Sir E. R. Henry, developed the classification system for fingerprints that is still in use today in the United States and Europe.
-
Bertillon was credited with solving the first murder using fingerprints.
-
The FBI had 23 million criminal fingerprints cards on file, and getting a match with a fingerprint found at a crime scene and one stored on file required manual searching.
-
156 fingerprint examiners were given a test. One in five examiners made at least one false-positive identification.
-
The FBI developed the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System. This system provides digital, automated fingerprint searches, latent searches, electronic exchange of fingerprints, and test results.
