How does IAFIS work to identify fingerprints?

How does IAFIS work to identify fingerprints?

Richard Saferstein (Former Chief Forensic Scientist) gives expert video advice on: What is 'fingerprint analysis'?; How long has fingerprinting been used in CSI?; How has fingerprinting helped in CSI? and more...

The Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS) is a computerized system that ties together all of the police agencies in the United States. There are fifty million individuals that have their fingerprints within the IAFIS system. When a fingerprint search is made against the IAFIS, the investigator will put into the computer the different ridge characteristics and their locations. And, this would then be searched in a high speed search against the fifty million individuals present in the system and the number of candidates would then be identified. What is important, however, is that the computer will not make the ultimate decision. It will be a competent fingerprint examiner that will look at the various candidates that the computer generates and creates, and ultimately it is the human fingerprint examiner that makes the ultimate final comparison and identification.