TexasCHLforum.com

Spiderman15 wrote:O.K. Fella's Got the call this morning and the fingerprints were all ready rejected. Only took three day's I was impressed. Going to get them redone this Thursday drinking plenty of water and using Cornhusker's lotion. Any more suggestion's? Wish me luck.

Tell them that you have tough fingerprints and they need to take their time. I got mine done today and the lady really rushed through it, overriding the system when it said the fingerprints weren't good quality. For most people, a couple of bad fingerprints won't make any difference, but you will want to make sure they spend the time trying to get as good of a capture as possible. Watch the screen, and if the image is muddled, you should ask them to capture again.

Also, relax your hands and let them do the work. Just go limp; don't try to help them with your fingers.

Kythas wrote:Speaking of the electronic finger print places, where does one go to find a place that does them?

You have to schedule through L-1's site.

http://www.l1enrollment.com/state/?st=tx

There are a lot of different definitions of "retained" I know military fingerprints are kept in a database at the FBI, but are never searched expect in very, very special circumstances. Teacher fingerprints are deleted. To a certain extent, it is in the FBI's best interest to try to keep irrelevant records (eg good guys) out of their database. The more records you have, the more likely you will have a false positive (or negative). If I recall correctly, the FBI actually has about 12 different databases that they search under different guideline.

I suspect the CHL records are deleted by the FBI after the search, but are kept in a separate database by DHS for resubmittal on a renewal.

USA1 wrote:I'm surprised they don't want DNA these days.

DNA tests are about $100 each. However, DNA is much more effective in a forensics application, because it is easy to leave DNA at a crime scene.

For identification, which is what the CHL check is all about, there is nothing that can beat fingerprints for accuracy and low-cost. With a set of 10-prints, the chance for false match or false non-match is infinitesimal.

As an aside, does anyone know whether the CHL prints are retained, either by the state or by the FBI? I couldn't find out anything about it online. For teachers, the check is done and then the prints are deleted. I was wondering if CHL prints are treated the same way. For all I know, they are checked against every latent from a crime scene.

Estimates vary, but about .5%-2% of the population do not have "usable" fingerprints. Sometimes it is because of your job (masonry work is a big one) and sometimes it is just genetic. However, you do have some distinguishing features on your fingers, guaranteed. You just don't have the normal patterns of ridges it is expecting. One of the problems with electronic collection systems is that they will reject anything without ridges, because the computerized matching requires those ridges. If you were able to collect with ink, it would be just fine, although you still couldn't be matched in an electronic system.

I used to work in Iraq collecting prints, and we had lots of people with terrible prints there. The thing that worked the best was lotion, as some posters have already mentioned. Also make sure your hands are as clean as they can be before you go in. For the "regular" people, if your prints are kind of faint, you can just run your fingers through your hair -- that will usually collect enough oil to make them stand out. That won't help much if you don't have usable prints, though.

It is interesting that they are giving you an option to just match two sets of prints. I have no idea what that really accomplishes.

As an aside, there are some new sensors on the horizon that will capture subcutaneous fingerprints. Those can be used through gloves, and work even if your fingers are all messed up.