NIST Guides Seek Interoperability for Automated Fingerprint ID Systems

The National Institute of Standards and Technology has released three new publications to assist forensic examiners in matching a set of fingerprints to those on file in local, state, or federal fingerprint databases. In 2008, NIST’s Law Enforcement Standards Office partnered with NOBLIS, a non-profit research corporation to implement the Extended Feature Set (EFS). The EFS is a method for encoding fingerprint, palm print, and footprint features regardless of what automated fingerprint identification system is being used. The first publication, Extended Feature Set Profile Specification, defines the EFS Profile, sets of reference friction ridge characteristics that allow examiners to “triage” their search strategy for a particular latent print. The Markup Instructions for Extended Friction Ridge Features provides forensic examiners with instructions to encode a set of latent ridge print information using the Extended Feature Set. It also ensures that examiners use common terminology to enable information sharing between other examiners. The third publication Latent Interoperability Transmission Specification describes the application profile language by which different automated fingerprint identification systems can communicate with each other.

Source: Forensic Magazine and NIST

To read the full article and download the publications, click here.

Citation: (2013). Forensic Magazine. NIST guides seek interoperability for automated fingerprint ID systems. Retrieved from http://www.forensicmag.com/news/nist-guides-seek-interoperability-automated-fingerprint-id-systems.

[Abstract by ForensIQ intern, Andrea Williams]