Solving crimes with simply the snap of a finger

Lt. John V. Byrd of the Fairfax County police holds a mobile fingerprint reader. (Tom Jackman/the Washington Post)
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Such military technology is reaching the local level because of "a tremendous amount of money" dedicated to research and development in the military, said Roger Morrison, director of federal sales for Datastrip, the company that makes the mobile fingerprint/iris scan units.

Morrison said fingerprint and iris scan devices are "rapidly being embraced by law enforcement as the next big thing." Mobile fingerprint devices are used in places such as Los Angeles, Charleston, S.C., and Austin.

Civil rights questions

But civil rights activists, including Christopher Calabrese, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, are concerned about the new tools. He questioned whether police agencies should have this type of anti-terrorism grant.

"This is money from the Department of Homeland Security. There should be a connection to terrorism in some way," Calabrese said. "This doesn't seem like anti-terrorism. It seems like mass surveillance of the innocent population."

He said criminal investigations would benefit if police knew the identities of everyone on the streets. "But that would terrorize ordinary people and make them fear their government," he said.

Local agencies are hoping that the FBI, which is upgrading its fingerprint repository, will add iris scans, DNA and voice recognition.

"The technology is the easy part," said Stephen L. Morris, deputy assistant director of the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services division. "The challenge we face is being able to navigate through policies and privacy issues -- how we use it, store it and disseminate it."

Police say that unless suspects are under arrest, they can decline the fingerprint scans and any other biometric collection. But few do, officers say.

"People are intrigued by it," said Alexandria Cmdr. Charles Bailey, who heads the department's Crime Scene Investigation Section and is in charge of the agency's mobile fingerprint devices.

He said suspects are often surprised by the device and don't know what to expect, or they don't believe officers when they explain what it can do. "Some people think it's a joke," he said.

It works by connecting to fingerprint and mug shot databases across the region and is able to search more than 1.5 million entries.

Fairfax recently bought 10 upgraded units, which are about the size of an iPod and connect to the officer's mobile phone or PDA. In one case several weeks ago, Fairfax Officer Brian Bowers stopped a man in a car who had illegally tinted his windows. The man said he didn't have a driver's license but agreed to let Bowers scan his fingers. Within minutes, Bowers learned that the man was a registered sex offender who had violated his probation.

In another case, Bowers stopped a woman who cut him off in traffic. She said she didn't have a driver's license with her, and she gave Bowers a false name. A fingerprint scan revealed that she had a suspended license and that she was employed as a bus driver in Arlington County.

Another time, Fairfax officers arrived at a home to serve a warrant on a man wanted for domestic violence. The man's wife answered the door and said he wasn't home. Bowers and another officer searched the house and found a man hiding in a closet who said he was the woman's brother-in-law.

"We had no way to prove who he was or wasn't," Bowers said.

But the man agreed to have his finger scanned, and the officers learned that he was the man they were looking for.

Bowers said that he uses the device about once each shift and that it has never caused a bad experience with a suspect or a criminal.

"More often than not, we've gotten positive reaction from criminals who say: 'That's pretty neat. That's amazing,' " he said. "I think it's only going to get better and better."