1. Tracing back to the earliest fingerprint identification technology (1) The earliest fingerprint technology China is recognized as the birthplace of “fingerprint technology” in the world and has a very long history in fingerprint applications. Tracing the history of fingerprints of the Chinese nation can be traced back to the middle Neolithic Age 6,000 years ago. There are clearly visible fingerprint patterns printed on the pottery unearthed at the Banpo site. At the 5,000-year-old Hongshan Cultural Site (today’s Dongxiao Hongshan, Chifeng City, Inner Mongolia), archaeological finds on ancient pottery jars have three sets of geometric curves, which are three identical, typical skip-shaped fingerprints. Each fingerprint painting has a center line and 6 surrounding lines. A 5,000-year-old painted pottery pot with human fingerprints was unearthed from the Majiajiao Culture in Liuwan Cemetery, Ledu County, Qinghai Province. There are 4 original spiral fingerprint paintings painted on it. The detailed features of the starting point and end point of the ridge line are very obvious. A triangle is drawn between the two sets of paintings, and a central pattern and two left and right triangle patterns form a complete bucket-shaped fingerprint painting. Fingerprint scientists have confirmed that fingerprints were used as templates for ancient people to design pottery patterns. Among the geometric decorative patterns named by archaeologists on Neolithic pottery, such as wave patterns, arc patterns, circle patterns, curve patterns, swirl patterns, thunder cloud patterns, etc., they are all found on fingerprints. This is an accurate and vivid fingerprint painting based on accumulated rich experience in fingerprint observation. The success of this creation is a re-creation based on a deep understanding of the characteristics of fingerprints, and is a prelude to the understanding of fingerprint technology. The first security measure using fingerprints in ancient China. During the Qin and Han Dynasties (221 BC to 25 AD), the sealing mud system was popular. At that time, most of the public and private documents were written on wooden slips or wooden slips. They were tied with ropes when dispatched, and the ends or intersections of the ropes were sealed with clay and stamped with seals or fingerprints as verification to prevent unauthorized opening. This kind of mud-sealed fingerprint is used as a personal identifier and also expresses authenticity and trustworthiness. It also prevents counterfeiting. This confidentiality measure is reliable and easy to implement. The first contract document printed with fingerprints in ancient China. In 1959, a Tang Dynasty Tibetan document (borrowed Su deed) was unearthed in the ancient city of Milan, Xinjiang. This deed is written on brown, thick paper, 27.5 cm long and 20.5 cm wide. The Tibetan text is black, and there are 4 red fingerprints on the signature. On one of them, a ridge was visible, which was definitely a fingerprint. In addition, during the Song Dynasty of my country, evidence and science were the key to judging cases. Fingerprints were then used as physical evidence in formal criminal cases. "History of the Song Dynasty - Biography of Yuan Jiang" records the story of Yuan Jiang using fingerprints to judge cases. (2) The formal formation of fingerprint technology. Fingerprints were first used in China, but the formation of fingerprint technology is the contribution of Westerners to the world. Dr. Henry Foltz was a member of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of the United Kingdom and worked at Tsukiji Hospital in Japan from 1874 to 1886. On October 8, 1880, he published the paper "Skin Furrows on the Hands" in the 22nd issue of the British "Nature" magazine. At almost the same time, Sir William Herschel, the British Empire's home officer in the Indian colonies, served in the Civil Affairs Department of the Hooghly region of Bengal from 1853 to 1878. On November 28, 1880, the 23rd issue of the British magazine "Nature" also published his article - "Ritches on the Skin of Hands". Compared with Dr. Henry Foltz's paper, his paper was published in the same magazine only one issue later, but the titles of the two papers are surprisingly similar. During the 13 years that Dr. Henry Foltz taught biology in Japan, he saw that many documents in Japan were signed with handprints just like China. Dr. Henry Foltz became very interested in fingerprints on ancient pottery due to his sensitivity to biological knowledge. He collected a large number of fingerprints for research, and after a large number of observations and comparisons, he determined that people's fingerprints are different. Thus becoming the first person to propose the first characteristic of fingerprints. In order to understand whether fingerprints change during a person's life cycle, he organized Japanese students and doctors to conduct various experiments. Use sandpaper, acid and alkali to try to remove or corrode the fingerprints, but the newly grown fingerprints will be exactly the same as the original ones. With his profound biological knowledge, Dr. Henry Foltz used biological theories and methods to standardize his fingerprint research from the beginning. He quickly came to the conclusion that fingerprints are different, and confirmed by the University of Giessen Lecturer and anthropologist Olke proposed the theory that fingerprints remain unchanged throughout life in 1856. By 1921, Henry Foltz published seven consecutive issues of the bimonthly magazine "Fingerprintology", establishing his dominant position in Western fingerprintology.
When Sir William Herschel served in India from 1853 to 1878, he discovered that some Chinese businessmen in Bengal sometimes made thumbprints on contracts. He also used the method of fingerprinting, asking every soldier to stamp two fingerprints on the list and receipt of the allowance. As a result, the situation of repeated claims and false claims came to an abrupt end. Later, he asked the prisoners to press the middle and index fingers of their right hands as pledges, which stopped the common phenomenon at that time of criminals hiring someone to serve their sentence and pretending to be someone else. Sir William Herschel collected fingerprint files of thousands of people during his 19-year fingerprint experiment and practice. These archives provide valuable information for further research into fingerprint technology. In 1877, he wrote "The Lines of the Hand" in India. In 1891, Galton used statistics and probability theory to sort out the morphological rules of fingerprints. He was Darwin's cousin and was good at statistics. Based on the number and presence of triangles in fingerprints, he combined all kinds of fingerprints into three major types: bow, skip, and bucket, and then subdivided them into subtypes. , compiling digital codes for various forms, which greatly facilitates the management of fingerprint files. Henry Foltz's theory was systematically organized by Galton, and in 1892 Galton published his classic masterpiece "Fingerprintology". This book marks the birth of modern fingerprint science in a non-empirical sense and with scientific significance. Henry, Sir William Hershel's successor, studied Galton's "Fingerprintology" in 1893 and created a fingerprint file classification and registration method. He divided fingerprints into 5 categories: radial ring (frontal ring), Ulnar side ring (reverse skip), spiral type, flat arch and convex arch (see Figure 26), and began to be used in India. In 1901, the British government adopted Henry's fingerprint classification method. In 1903, Germany, the United States in 1904, and France in 1914 also used Henry's fingerprint method. Other countries such as Switzerland, Norway, Russia, Italy, Egypt and other countries later adopted Henry's fingerprint classification method. Since then, Henry's fingerprint classification method has been widely used in the world, including in our country. 2. Artificial fingerprint identification technology takes shape. Since the Henry fingerprint method was proposed, countries around the world have begun to use this classification method extensively in their own criminal investigation fields. At that time, fingerprint archiving used fingerprint cards as carriers to store fingerprints. As more and more fingerprints are collected, the subtypes of fingerprints become more and more abundant. After years of practical application experience, the FBI and other agencies have expanded the Henry fingerprint system and added more judgment data as the basis for auxiliary classification. . At the same time, taking into account the convenience of fingerprint card storage, retrieval and management, the FBI developed fingerprint card standards, including card size, ink type, number of fingerprints, names of fingerprints that should be collected (thumb, etc.), fingerprint pressing position, and description text location. wait. Under the circumstances at that time, fingerprint collection was all done in the form of fingerprint cards. At the criminal investigation scene, most of the methods for collecting fingerprints left by suspects are to use chemical development and other methods to reveal the fingerprints, and then take photos to obtain the fingerprints at the scene and save them for subsequent manual comparison. There are many specific methods for displaying fingerprints, which are mainly summarized into several categories such as physical adhesion color development, chemical reaction color development, and fluorescence display. But no method is a "one-size-fits-all method" that can be applied everywhere. Specific screening must be done based on quality, time, and place, otherwise it will not be effective, and the on-site fingerprints may even be destroyed. The following is the basic idea provided by a staff member who has been engaged in criminal investigation for many years. (1) First, check under natural light or artificial light source by adjusting the intensity and angle of the light so that you can observe more clearly, that is, take pictures directly. (2) If it is difficult to observe under ordinary light, try using different filters for fluorescence inspection under various colored lights, ultraviolet and laser. Many substances (including sweat substances) will produce fluorescence when excited by external light energy. Different substances emit fluorescence in different wavelength ranges when excited by excitation light of different wavelengths. There are several types of filters. When the filter matches the fluorescence wavelength of the fingerprint material, we can see and photograph clear fingerprints through the filter. (3) Using special glue fumigation method, most fingerprints can be revealed. Moreover, the adhesion of the lines revealed by fumigation is enhanced, and other methods such as iodine fumigation can be used to enhance the fumigation effect. (4) After fumigation, if the effect is not good, you can leave it to evaporate and continue to use chemical methods to develop the color. Generally, the spray method is used. Depending on the object, different reagents can be used. (5) After fumigation, it is not suitable to use chemical methods. Physical methods can be used to display, and then vacuum coating method can be used to enhance the effect. (6) Finally, secondary fluorescence technology can also be used for inspection.
Artificial fingerprint comparison is generally carried out by professional technicians based on pre-established fingerprint classification methods and fingerprint detail identification methods to manually identify the fingerprints collected from the scene and the fingerprint cards in the fingerprint database. At that time, manual comparison was mainly used for criminal detection and court judgment, so it was very important to ensure the accuracy of manual comparison. 3. Automatic fingerprint identification emerged at the historic moment. In the 1960s, the gradual rise of information technology represented by electronic computers provided new ideas and methods for people to study fingerprint identification. As early as 1961, a paper recording the automatic comparison of fingerprints was published. In 1963, the famous "Nature" magazine also published a paper on automatic fingerprint recognition. As for the application of fingerprint cards, by 1969, the FBI alone had collected fingerprints from more than 16 million people. At that time, the FBI had found that the task of storing and searching for fingerprints was too heavy for FBI staff to bear. So I asked the American National Bureau of Standards to help research automatic comparison technology. At that time, France, the United Kingdom, Russia, Canada, and Japan also started similar research. At present, most of the world's famous automatic fingerprint identification system (AFIS) companies were founded and developed during this stage, such as SAGEM (Morpho System), UltraScan, Printrak Motorola, NEC, Biolink, Idenicator, Cogent, etc. In our country, "fingerprint identification" is one of the important evidences. In the previous work of solving crimes, technicians needed to hold a magnifying glass and check the fingerprints extracted at the scene among hundreds of thousands of fingerprint files one by one. Sometimes more than a dozen people were needed It took two months of continuous work before it was possible to find the same fingerprints. In the early 1990s, the Criminal Science and Technology Institute of the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau (hereinafter referred to as the Criminal Science Institute) successfully developed an automatic fingerprint identification system that was internationally advanced and in line with the actual needs of my country's criminal investigation departments, completely putting an end to this physically demanding process. labor. It only takes up to 5 minutes to do the same job with the automatic fingerprint recognition system. The fingerprints extracted by the police from the crime scene, regardless of whether they are blurred, incomplete, deformed or even deliberately damaged, can be scanned and entered into the computer to compare the same fingerprint and the owner of the fingerprint within a few minutes, or inform the user of the fingerprint in the database. There are no identical fingerprints. This system has made great contributions in the detection of major criminal cases such as the Lu Xianzhou series of robbery cases of cash transport vehicles. At present, this system has been promoted and used in public security agencies across the country, and a huge database of fingerprint files on criminal records has been established, most of which have been compared remotely. Using this system, Beijing solved 117 criminal cases in 1999 and has solved nearly 100 cases so far this year. Since this system was promoted nationwide, it has solved more than 10,000 cases and saved more than 100 million yuan in economic losses. 4. Police AFIS (Fingerprint Identification System) to Civilian AFIS (Fingerprint Identification System) Before the 1990s, fingerprint identification technology was basically only used in the field of criminal investigation to meet the special needs of national criminal investigation and court identification. Due to the large fingerprint database, high complexity of image signal processing, and high real-time requirements of the police AFIS system, its hardware cost and operating environment requirements are relatively high, and the cost of use and maintenance is also relatively high, making it difficult to The scale is widespread, so it is mainly used in the fields of justice and criminal investigation. The application and development of fingerprint recognition technology in the civilian field is slow. The biggest obstacles are that the computer system is too large and expensive, and the fingerprint collection method is backward and difficult to use. The traditional collection method is to press your finger on paper to leave a fingerprint imprint, and then use a scanner or other device to input the fingerprint imprint into a computer for processing. This is slow and inconvenient. The quality of the fingerprint image cannot be guaranteed. There are often overlaps and Adhesion and other phenomena greatly affect the recognition accuracy. With the continuous development and maturity of computer image processing and pattern recognition theory and large-scale integrated circuit technology, fingerprint automatic identification systems have undergone a qualitative leap. The size has been reduced, the speed has been increased, the implementation cost and the requirements for the operating environment have been gradually reduced. Fingerprint collection The speed and convenience are improved. These have taken a big step forward in the practical application of fingerprint authentication technology. It is widely used in document confidentiality, information security, access control, attendance management and card management in government, banks, taxation, social security, schools and corporate institutions. and other various occasions that require computers to perform automatic identity authentication. This change occurs in the second phase of automatic recognition.
Generally speaking, the application focus of police AFIS is to use fingerprints as evidence and fingerprint recognition as an effective evidence collection technology. The application focus of civilian AFIS is to use fingerprints as identification marks of personal identity, and to use fingerprint recognition as an effective identity confirmation method in application systems. 5. The basis of fingerprint identification technology is the two characteristics of fingerprints. As the saying goes, they are inseparable. No matter how fingerprint identification technology develops, for it itself, "fingerprint" is always the most basic component and the main object of fingerprint identification. , no matter how the technology develops, it can only be said to be the technical identification of the main object "fingerprint". Therefore, the characteristics of fingerprints are the basis of fingerprint identification technology. The two major characteristics of fingerprints are: (1) "The shape of everyone's fingerprints remains unchanged throughout life"; (2) "Everyone's fingerprints are different." (1) The theory that "fingerprints remain unchanged for life" was proposed by Ocker, a lecturer and anthropologist at the University of Giessen in 1856. He compared his fingerprints when he was 34 and 75 years old and found that the pattern type and detail features of the fingerprints had not changed, so he proposed this theory. "Fingerprints remain unchanged throughout life" means that the ridge shape of fingerprints will not change throughout life. As a person ages after birth, the ridges will become thicker and the area of ??the striations will increase. But in adulthood, these changes are less obvious. "The lifelong invariance of fingerprints" is also reflected in its certain recoverability and indestructibility. Restorability comes from the regeneration ability of the dermal papilla. As long as the dermis is not damaged, even if a large area of ??epidermis is peeled off, it can slowly recover and maintain the same pattern and structure as the original, as well as all characteristic points. (2) Another major characteristic of fingerprints is that they are “different”. It was proposed by the Englishman Henry Foltz, the first Henry to write "Fingerprintology". He is a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons and teaches biology. During his missionary work in Japan, he saw many Japanese documents that were the same as Chinese documents. He often pressed his fingerprints and began to collect fingerprints in large quantities for research. He organized Japanese students and doctors to conduct various experiments on fingerprints, thus proving that everyone The fingerprints are different. At the same time, he also proved the theory that "fingerprints remain unchanged for life" proposed by Ocker.