What is the difference between fingerprints and fingerscans?
Fingerprinting, as the name suggests, is the acquisition and storage of the image of the fingerprint. Fingerprinting was for decades the common ink-and-roll procedure, used when booking suspects or conducting criminal investigations. More advanced optical or non-contact fingerprinting systems (known as live-scan), which normally utilize prints from several fingers, are currently the standard for forensic usage. They require 250kb per finger for a high-quality image. Fingerscan technology also acquires the fingerprint, but doesn’t store the full image. It stores particular data about the fingerprint in a much smaller template, requiring from 250-1000 bytes. After the data is extracted, the fingerprint is not stored. Significantly, the full fingerprint cannot be reconstructed from the fingerscan template.
