During the entire history of fingerprint submission, there has been only one reliable way to obtain a good, classifiable set of fingerprints, ink & roll.
While ink & roll has proved its reliability, it has its drawbacks. Image quality largely depends on the skill of the person rolling the prints, the type of inking system used and the cooperation of the person being fingerprinted. Often times, a set of fingerprints that looked classifiable when rolled are ultimately rejected at identification. By this time, the person fingerprinted has been released and getting them back to fingerprint again may be difficult, if not impossible.
Breakthroughs in capture equipment and compression algorithms along with standardization of formats now make electronic capture and submission of fingerprints not only possible but preferable. The major benefit of electronic fingerprint submission is the quality control built into the systems, both for image and data quality. Poor quality images have a much better chance of being identified prior to an individual’s release, making re-fingerprinting possible.
The speed with which electronic fingerprints may be processed also greatly reduces the amount of time needed to make an identification and return the reply to the booking agency. Eventual implementation of Lights Out processing will allow for identification 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Finally, electronic submission reduces booking time. Before electronic capture, an agency wishing to book an individual for an offense reportable to both the state and FBI needed to ink and roll three fingerprints cards, one for the agency, one for CIB and one for the FBI, in addition to any required final disposition forms. Today, the images are captured once electronically and, in most instances, the text data for the arrest card is imported directly from the agency’s record management system.