National Automated Fingerprint Identification System (NAFIS)

NAFIS is able to hold and store images of fingerprints and marks. The system can compare sets of fingerprints to verify identity and, more significantly, it has the ability to analyse the characteristics of marks submitted and compare them with all the fingerprints stored to produce a list of ‘likely’ suspects. The fingerprint expert then compares the mark visually with the suspects’ fingerprints to confirm identity. While the main advantage of NAFIS is speed of search, human expertise is still required, but by concentrating on the more ‘likely’ suspects identified by the system, the expert is being used to maximum effect. The system can also store up to 80,000 unidentified marks taken from scenes of crime, and the fingerprints of a person arrested for the first time are run against the marks collection to check whether the person has been responsible for any unsolved crime.

In summary, then, the NAFIS system can carry out:

• fingerprint comparisons to establish the identity of suspects
• mark to 10-print comparisons to identify persons responsible for committing specific crimes
• 10-print to mark comparisons to check whether a new offender may be responsible for any unsolved crime
• mark to mark comparisons to identify whether two or more crimes may have been committed by the same culprit

The speed of the system can be enhanced by introducing delimiters to concentrate the search area. For example, if it is known that the suspect is male, then the system can be requested not to search the fingerprints of females in the database. Similarly, the area where the crime occurred will be searched first, since a significant of proportion of crime is committed by persons living locally.

The NAFIS System has identified suspects from finger prints put through the system in a matter of minutes when in the past the same search being done manually would have taken several hours or even days, depending upon when the search was requested.

The NAFIS System has allowed police to quickly identify suspects in custody who when originally arrested for a minor offence have used a alias, which in the past would have resulted in the custody officer bailing the person, when in fact the person may have a history which if known would have changed the custody officers decision when deciding bail issues such as the person having an extended crime history or being wanted by police in another area.

These above are just examples of why NAFIS is such a useful tool to the police service.