ABSTRACT
Two cornerstones to the use of ngerprints as a means of personal identication are the overall permanence (a.k.a. persistency, durability, or reproducibility) and the high selectivity (a.k.a. discrimination) of friction ridge skin. It is thanks to these two attributes, and to the fact that ngerprints can be classied with relative ease, that the technique imposed itself over precedent identication methods based on anthropometric measurements. Both of these foundationspermanence and selectivity-have been challenged and conrmed through 100 years of ngerprint identication practice and their scientic foundations lie within biological research.
