adverse to what many would like to believe , fingerprint evidence is n’t all that dependable . Partial prints and smudged prints can be difficult to read , and in the U.S. at least , fingerprintanalysis is left to individual interpretation rather than a stage set of criterion outline what can be conceive a match .
That could soon change , though . A statistical shaft develop by a Department of Defense analyst is able-bodied to take two fingerprint and assure how probable it is that they came from the same person , harmonize toGizmodo . The package programme , called FRStat , was used in a court for the first time in February and is now available to any lab that wants to essay it out .
Henry Swofford , of the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Laboratory at the Department of Defense , spent four year forge with statisticians to train the software . It works by comparing images of the modest features of fingermark minutiae ( ridges ) against " likewise distinguish , have intercourse compeer " in a database . The software is then able to compute the likelihood that the prints were leave by the same individual . Apaperoutlining the statistical method was published in the journalForensic Science International .
" I require to tone up the institution of our science , " Swofford recite Gizmodo . " I also want to check that the grounds is presented in a style that the hangdog the great unwashed are convict , and the innocent are exonerated . "
A 2011 study determine a false positivist pace of 0.1 per centum among fingerprint readings , and there have been numerous high - profile instance of wrongful convictions over the age . In oneexample , Brandon Mayfield , a lawyer from Oregon , was arrested in connection with the 2004 Madrid gear bombardment after four expert concord that his prints jibe ones line up on a bag at the scene . He was finally give up after that raise to be a mistake .
While FRStat is n’t the first technology that attempts to make fingermark analysis more precise , it ’s the first one that has been make grow for widespread , hardheaded usage , according to Gizmodo .
[ h / tGizmodo ]
