100 Years of Fingerprints and Criminal History Records
FBI celebrates an innovation milestone and looks to the future of biometric identification
The inside of "Machine Gun" Kelly’s Notorious Deceased file at CJIS in West Virginia includes his fingerprint card, photo, and fingerprints. Kelly, whose real name was George Kelly Barnes, was a gangster and kidnapper who reportedly said "Don't shoot, G-men" when he was arrested in Memphis in 1933.
When someone sends the FBI a digital request for a fingerprint comparison from anywhere in the country, they usually receive a response within seconds. That's no small feat given that the Bureau's Next Generation Identification System, or NGI, contains more than 161 million fingerprint records.
"It’s no wonder the NGI System is renowned as such a vital tool among our law enforcement partners everywhere—not just with state and local departments across the country, but also among our international partners throughout the world," said FBI Director Christopher Wray during a ceremony marking a century since the Bureau established a central fingerprint repository to help the country's law enforcement agencies identify and capture criminals. The NGI System is housed and managed by the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Division on a secure campus three hours west of Washington, D.C., in Clarksburg, West Virginia.
Director Wray joined past and present CJIS leaders, lawmakers, FBI staff, and dozens of retired fingerprint examiners at the July 10 event, which celebrated 100 years since the Bureau established its Identification Division on July 1, 1924. The new division consolidated 810,000 fingerprint files from the United States Penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas, and the National Bureau of Criminal Identification, which had been the keeper of crime data for the International Association of Chiefs of Police since 1896.
Wray described the history of fingerprint technology in investigations spanning a century.
"I’m proud that we’ve maintained that focus on growing our capabilities, because there’s simply no other way to remain as effective as a law enforcement and intelligence agency when the threats are as dynamic and evolving as they are today," Wray said. He also highlighted the introduction of new biometric modalities—like facial recognition, palm prints, and iris scans—as innovations that will help the FBI and its partners better carry out their missions into the future. NGI's National Iris Service, for example, allows users like police and prison staff to enroll iris images without physical contact, linking a subject's irises to their respective fingerprint records. "You want to talk about the textbook illustration of innovation," Wray said.
To help mark the occasion, artifacts spanning the fingerprint repository's century-long history were on display for visitors. Items included vintage fingerprint cards, magnifiers, and the colored pencils that fingerprint examiners have used for generations. And a gallery of images illustrated the progression of fingerprint technology—from taking impressions with ink rollers and paper cards to the digital mobile devices that many agencies use today.
"There is not a doubt in my mind that the American people are safer because of your work."
FBI Director Christopher Wray
Director Wray delivered remarks during the ceremony that marked a century since the Bureau established a central fingerprint repository.
FBI Director Christopher Wray and Acting Assistant Director of CJIS Tim Ferguson view fingerprint cards.
"This anniversary highlights the evolution of the biometrics program within the FBI," said Tim Ferguson, acting assistant director of the CJIS Division. "It’s amazing to me that we had the same type of fingerprint index from 1924 until 1999, where you would have hundreds of file cabinets in a warehouse with fingerprint cards that required all the manual identification and comparisons."
Up until the turn of the century, in fact, the role of fingerprint examiners changed very little. When a set of fingerprints arrived for comparison to the millions on file, examiners—using a special cataloging system—hunted through rows of filing cabinets to find the right cards to compare against.
For more than 100 years, fingerprints have been used to help make positive identifications. The investigation of Frank Grigware in 1910 was one of the young Bureau's first and longest-running cases. An FBI agent fingerprinted former Iraq leader Saddam Hussein after he was pulled out of his spider hole on December 13, 2003.
"It was a manual process," said David, a supervisory management and program analyst at CJIS. David’s FBI career started in 1988 as a fingerprint examiner at FBI Headquarters before the CJIS Division moved 450 employees to its new campus in West Virginia in 1995. In those early days, he said, "everything was paper."
Hundreds of fingerprint examiners worked in shifts 24 hours a day to keep up with an ever-growing number of requests. "When I came into the picture in 1988, it took us a month, sometimes longer, to respond to a fingerprint check," David said. "It took a very long time because of a backlog and how long it took to do that manual process. Today, we do it in seconds."
In 1999, the implementation of the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS) heralded the era of digitized fingerprints at the FBI. Millions of paper cards were digitally scanned and made accessible via computers. This gave examiners more efficient tools to do manual examinations.
The end of the 20th century marked the beginning of the end of paper fingerprint cards. Tens of millions of cards were digitized for more efficient processing and identifications.
In fiscal year 2023, manual examinations by CJIS personnel made up just 3% of requests—or two million entries. Most comparisons are made automatically. Last year alone, CJIS received and processed 74 million fingerprints. Earlier this year, CJIS registered its one-billionth electronic transaction.
"Ninety-seven percent of the fingerprints we get into our system are automated," Ferguson said. "It’s almost an immediate response back to our local, state, and private partners when requests are made."
For the more than 600 personnel in CJIS's Biometric Services Section, processes have changed, but the mission hasn't.
"In terms of the fingerprint examiner's role, the work was the same in that your training, experience, and skill at comparing fingerprints did not change," David said. "What changed were the tools you had to accomplish that comparison."
A microfilm table and light board, along with folder fingerprint kits
A Five-O fingerprint device used to capture fingerprints in the field
A microfilm reader is used to view and print images on a microfilm reel.
A sorter used by the Response Section to sort fingerprint cards
A Quick Capture Platform kit was the first mobile platform used by the FBI.
Training manual for fingerprint examiners
In 2014, NGI replaced IAFIS and expanded the number of biometric modalities well beyond fingerprints to include irises, palm prints, tattoos, scars, and marks. "Whereas the fingerprints will always be the staple and backbone of identification, we're always looking for ways to revolutionize the way we identify individuals," Ferguson said. "One of the things we’re focusing on when it comes to technology and advancement in biometric services and identification modalities is how can we assist the local police officer, the local detective, the FBI agent that’s on the street to conduct criminal and counterterrorism investigations, and provide those services in real time."
The FBI manages DNA—another highly accurate identification modality—separately at the FBI Laboratory in Quantico, Virginia, through the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS). CODIS contains DNA profiles contributed by federal, state, and local participating forensic laboratories. CODIS was designed to compare a target DNA record against the DNA records contained in the database—much like the NGI System does with fingerprints.
The ceremony at CJIS included dozens of retired fingerprint examiners, some of whom spent their entire careers navigating cavernous warehouse spaces full of cabinets and fingerprint cards, quietly making the indisputable connections that helped close cases.
"I’m really excited for them to see how far it's come and to see what we're doing now with technology," said David, the former fingerprint examiner.
Wray said the centennial anniversary is a tribute to the generations of FBI employees who kept pushing the Bureau forward.
"They’ve shown us that, while our adversaries can be, at times, formidable, working with our partners across law enforcement, we—the good guys—can be unstoppable," Wray said. "And I believe that if we continue on this road, with an enduring commitment to innovation and our partnerships, we’ll stay on the cutting edge of criminal justice technology."
