Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (the Iafis)
IAFIS stands to indicate Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System. It is administered by the FBI and used to identify national fingerprints. The Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System has electronic image storage, electronic fingerprint exchange, and latent searching capabilities. Electronic submissions of fingerprints allow agencies to receive electronic replies within two hours for criminal submissions and 24 hours if they are submitted for civil fingerprint submissions. IAFIS also contains criminal history information for more than 55 million people.
The FBI is the nation’s primary headquarter for fingerprints. It receives thousands of fingerprints every single day since 1924. Many problems in scanning/feature extracting and matching first began to happen. Although the first AFIS was expensive and required a large room, it converted over 14 million fingerprints into digital format in its first year. The FBI made improvements to the system in 1974, but they returned to the manual process which took them between 30 and 45 days to process a single fingerprint request. The process for printing identification was greatly improved by a new system. The new process can process thousands upon thousands of sets in a matter of minutes, whereas the old process took several days. Many companies tried to replicate AFIS’s success. The system was fully operational in July 1999. A fingerprint identification system is a ten fingerprint submission. It has ten fingerprint impressions rolled and ten fingerprint impressions flat. When an arrest takes place in a locality, county or state, the fingerprints of the suspect are taken. The fingerprints are collected locally and sent electronically to a state agency. IAFIS is open to both electronic and hard-copy submissions. IAFIS receives fingerprint images for each record.
Participating states update and establish records by receiving first and subsequent fingerprints of arrested subjects. These records can be updated by states. Once established, they will provide required criminal history records to state-maintained records. For a better record, the National Fingerprint File requires that the state submit the first arrest fingerprint image on each subject. The NFF states are responsible for all subsequent activities related the this NFF record. A Criminal History Request is sent to NFF states that have received a IAFIS fingerprint query if the inquiry identifies someone with a criminal record in any of the NFF participating state. This will allow them to respond appropriately. Remote fingerprint and latent searches can also be performed by the IAFIS.
Remote searches result in electronic returns that include a list with potential matches as well as their fingerprints. This allows for identification and comparison. Even cases that were solved years ago have been solved by the IAFIS. Police Department responded to the scene of a stabbing death in Omaha Nebraska on October 17th 1978. Evidence that was collected by law enforcement officials included palm prints as well as latent marks. The case was not solved. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement asked the Police Department’s Cold Case Unit whether the evidence had been searched for and linked to a suspect in December 2008. Police Crime Laboratory searched IAFIS latent prints. Shortly after receiving a list from IAFIS, the Police Crime Laboratory searched the latent prints in IAFIS. Then, several days later, IAFIS results arrived which allowed for the positive identification.
