Your fingerprints change over time

Many court cases depend heavily on this for convictions and even in solving cold cases. But in the Discover magazine online edition of June 29, a scientific study revealed quite interesting preliminary findings. It challenges the almost fact-like notion that the “ridges and swirls remain the same from birth to death.”

The study was conducted by Soweon Yoon and Anil Jain using data from the Michigan State Police database.

What the study found is that “our fingerprints do slightly change as time progresses.” However, “those slight changes aren’t enough to befuddle the machines (fingerprint matching machines) in use today, for the most part.”

The study found that “your fingerprints don’t look the same to machines as they did 12 years ago.”

I wonder what impact this may have on our forensic science department in TT, given that court cases in many instances take almost a decade to be adjudicated upon, appeals to be heard, retrials ordered where necessary etc?

And what are the impacts of this finding on other contemporary uses of fingerprint technology in unlocking iPhones, opening doors in some highly protected organisations that use such biometric data etc?

Now I wonder if retina recognition (biometric system using the eye) changes over time as well? I wonder if this is the reason why the Immigration Department at US airports uses scans of both fingers and retina.

Kevin Ram

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