Fingerprinting has been a vital tool in forensic science since 1911 when the first conviction was handed out based on fingerprint evidence. It’s been used in countless investigations to help convict or rule out suspects, but is it as reliable as we think? According to one study, researchers found that fingerprint analysts had a false positive rate (i.e. when they incorrectly conclude two prints are a match) of 0.1%. That may seem low, but that percentage reveals that innocent people are still being implicated in crimes. Brandon Mayfield is one of the most famous examples of a false positive identification. The FBI arrested him for the 2004 Madrid train bombing based on a wrongful fingerprint match.
Wednesday, August 8, 2018
How reliable is fingerprint analysis?
Fingerprinting has been a vital tool in forensic science since 1911 when the first conviction was handed out based on fingerprint evidence. It’s been used in countless investigations to help convict or rule out suspects, but is it as reliable as we think? According to one study, researchers found that fingerprint analysts had a false positive rate (i.e. when they incorrectly conclude two prints are a match) of 0.1%. That may seem low, but that percentage reveals that innocent people are still being implicated in crimes. Brandon Mayfield is one of the most famous examples of a false positive identification. The FBI arrested him for the 2004 Madrid train bombing based on a wrongful fingerprint match.
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