Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS)

In 1989, the Missouri State Highway Patrol installed AFIS to enhance the efficiency of criminal identification and fingerprint processing. The AFIS system was purchased in 1988 from Sagem Morpho, Inc., a high technology imaging corporation located in Tacoma, Washington, which specializes in computerized fingerprint matching systems. AFIS is a computer system that electronically images and stores the characteristics of fingerprint patterns. Like any good computer system, it is only good as the information input into the system. Therefore, it is extremely important for fingerprint submissions to be of the best quality possible. Quality fingerprint impressions will ensure ridge detail and pattern characteristics of images sufficient enough to search against the unsolved latent database, improving the likelihood of a positive match being made on a latent fingerprint. A latent fingerprint is a partial fingerprint impression lifted from a crime scene. Any fingerprint submission received at the central repository is automatically searched against the existing database. The AFIS database began with an initial database of 400,000 fingerprints. The database is now comprised of over 1.5 million tenprints, a full set of rolled impressions containing data on all ten finger and over 50,000 unsolved latent prints. After fingerprint images are scanned and searched against existing prints in the AFIS system, the hardcopy fingerprint cards and latent prints are housed in the Criminal Records and Identification Division.