Fingerprints can be analyzed and associated with specific individuals. And because no one else in the world has the same fingerprints as us, any visible print is guaranteed to pinpoint a certain person at the scene. Another distinctive feature of fingerprints is that they never change: from the day you are born until the day you die, you are stuck with them. So, by analyzing the prints found during a crime, we are able to link a suspect or witness. We now have a database containing at least 700 million fingerprints. As a means of personal identification, fingerprints have been used in place of signatures dating back more than thirty-two hundred years, found carved into clay tablets recording commercial transactions in ancient Babylon. Modern usage is a form of identification and is just over 100 years old. British settlers in India used fingerprints to prevent identity theft among the natives. At this time, Sir Francis Galton, Charles Darwin's half-cousin, was the author of the first textbook on the subject of fingerprints, and by the turn of the century Scotland Yard had officially adopted fingerprint examination as a form of identification. The use of fingerprints became widely used in the United States around 1910. Today, most law enforcement agencies have fingerprint laboratories dedicated to identifying individuals based on different components of fingerprints. Most states have an identification agency, with the FBI hosting the world's largest collection of fingerprints in its AFIS system. SWGFast stands for Scientific Working Group on Friction Ridge Analysis. Supported and staffed by thirty to forty identification specialists from the United States and abroad, they worked to establish standards and guides...... middle of paper ......ing form also a system that is neither determined nor judged on what a suspect looks like, but rather on a physical identity given to us by evolution. Works Cited Gurdoglanyan, D. (2001) Fingerprints used in criminal investigations. Retrieved April 19, 2014. Abbinanti, CA (January 10, 1994) Computers help match fingerprints. Retrieved April 20, 2014.Am J Hum Genet. (1976, May) The inheritance of fingerprint patterns. Retrieved April 20, 2014. Watson, Stephanie. “How Fingerprinting Works” March 24, 2008. From HowStuffWorks.com. April 25 2014.