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In 1686, Marcello Malpighi, a professor in Italy at the University of Bologna was one of the first people to earnestly analyze fingerprints. He found fingerprints to have common patterns, including arches, loops, whorls, and ridges. -
Another professor, Johannes Evengelista Purkinje, documented nine different fingerprint patterns. Despite these findings, it would still be several more decades before fingerprints were found to be a viable form of identification. -
Dr. Henry Faulders, a Tokyo physician, became interested in fingerprinting and conducted his own experiments to prove that fingerprints could be useful. Dr. Faulders successfully matched fingerprints left on a stray bottle with a laboratory worker. -
In Argentina, police discovered a bloody fingerprint on a door frame and analyzed it to identify the murderer. In that same year, many police departments began to keep fingerprints on file. By 1896, law enforcement and other authorities around the world began to use fingerprints. -
The use of fingerprints also became commonplace in Paris with local police departments keeping the fingerprints of criminals on file. In 1902, Paris police discovered a fingerprint at the scene of a crime and compared it with their fingerprint files to identify the murderer. -
By 1903, America had begun using fingerprints. Some of the first police departments to adopt this investigative tool was the New York Police Department. Soon after, other departments throughout the state started using fingerprints to identify individuals. Over the next several years, the use of fingerprints began to spread west. -
The Army, Marines and Navy found fingerprints to be highly advantageous and the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation started to keep fingerprints on file. -
In 1924, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) assumed the role of cataloging fingerprints and by 1971, had collected and stored more than 200 million fingerprints. -
The 1990s is when fingerprinting technology really began to skyrocket. Many authorities adopted Automated Fingerprint Identification Systems (AFIF). These programs allowed law enforcement to quickly scan and store fingerprints electronically and with great accuracy. -
The FBI moved away from manual fingerprinting to more efficient electronic fingerprinting. This was a long and tedious process that involved having to transfer existing fingerprint files to a computerized electronic system. However, with the creation of this system, law enforcement was better equipped to scan and store millions of fingerprints from people around the world.