Live Scan Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Live Scan - Term Paper Example These services are generally required by the police department to keep records and track criminals. This service has also been used in airports throughout to quickly get the details of passengers and immigrants. This service is however also utilized by universities and other departments for checking employee records before employments. This information to these departments is usually available through Department of Justice (DOJ). Live scan uses the advanced digital photography methods to capture the images of fingerprints. For this the person needs to press his or her fingers on a screen or scanner. The image is scanned, captured and stored in electronic form on computer databases. Thus the whole process is somewhat similar to the scanning of documents in a scanner and storing the captured images on the computer in the form of a file. Scanning fingerprints however needs some special type of scanners. As these scans are stored in computers, it becomes easy to analyze the fingerprints without much hassle. These can be then shared with any departments around the world as it is easy to send the files through computer networks. "Live scan instruments must be able to collect fingerprints from a wide cross section of people-including those with very fine, worn, scarred or cracked fingerprint ridges and varying degrees of skin moisture content." (Cross Match Technologies, 2007). Most of the instruments provide scans for well ridged fingerprints giving very low quality scans for people with dry skin and other problems. This makes it very difficult to identify such fingerprints. Younger people are well suited for live scan fingerprints as they generally have healthy skin with no such problems to hinder the fingerprinting process. For people with too dry or too moist skin there is a problem in capturing the scans. For this purpose silicone membranes have been developed which are in the form of transparent sheets. These sheets are kept on the screen of the instrument and fingers are pressed against the sheet. This membrane helps in enhancing ridges of the fingers thereby providing well defined scans for people wi th varied moisture content in their skin. There is another problem faced by these instruments and that is of very high volume scans due to which the fingerprints often get mixed up. This problem is also addressed by these silicone membranes. The membranes last for very long and when they need replacement it is very easy to peel them off and place a new one without taking any time. Other advantages include the protection of the capturing screen of the instrument as the membrane is placed on it. Another it is very easy to clean the membrane once it gets dirty. There is no need of application of any liquid or special cloth to clean it. It is done simply by placing a tape on it so that the dirt or any oils, etc. stick to it and get away making the membrane ready to be used again. Although most of the instruments use optical scanning technique in live scan systems, there have been recent developments in this field prompting the use of ultrasonic technique for the same. The fingerprints using ultrasonic systems have been seen to be of better quality than the optical ones. The ultrasonic technique again addresses the same problems of varied moisture c