AI cracks the great fingerprint mystery
thoUSAnDS of cold cases could be solved thanks to a breakthrough in fingerprint analysis by artificial intelligence.
A computer using an AI system has shattered the received wisdom that prints from a person’s fingers were unique, meaning if a criminal left a thumb print at one crime scene, and an index finger print at another, there was no way to link the two.
the breakthrough came when a student at Columbia University in new york tried to see if artificial intelligence could find links between different fingerprints from the same person. Gabe Guo, an engineering graduate with no background in forensics, presented a computer with images of 60,000 fingerprints in pairs.
In some cases, the prints would be from two different fingers from a hand, and in others from different people. over time, the computer learned to spot giveaway patterns that revealed two fingerprints which looked different came from the same hand – something that had never been done before.
Writing in the journal Science Advances, Mr Guo said: ‘our main discovery is that fingerprints from different fingers of the same person share strong similarities; these results hold across all combinations of fingers, even from different hands of the same person.’ the findings were initially rejected, with one forensics journal saying ‘it is well known that every fingerprint is unique’, and ‘it would not be possible to detect similarities even if the fingerprints came from the same person’.
hod Lipson, professor of engineering at Columbia, said: ‘I don’t normally argue editorial decisions, but this finding was too important to ignore.
‘If this information tips the balance, then I imagine that cold cases could be revived, and even that innocent people could be acquitted.’
one of the points leading to the findings being rejected was that it was not clear what information the AI used to link apparently unrelated fingerprints. the research team concluded that it had identified new patterns in the ridges of the centres of the prints.
the discovery has another potential use: for computer identification.
Some laptops and security systems identify users by a fingerprint, but if the finger used to make it print is damaged – bandaged, for instance – the user is locked out. With the new system, another finger could be used.