History of Fingerprints

Fingerprints offer means of personal identification. Visible human characteristics change but fingerprints do not. In earlier civilizations, branding and even maiming were used to mark the criminal for what he was. The thief was deprived of the hand which committed the thievery. Romans employed the tattoo needle to identify and prevent desertion of mercenary soldiers.
fingerprints were used on clay tablets for business transactions. In ancient China, In 14th century Persia, various official government papers had fingerprints (impressions). In 1686, Marcello Malpighi was the first one to note and study on ridges, spirals and loops in fingerprints but he made no mention of their value as a tool for individual identification. A layer of skin was named after him; "Malpighi" layer.

Sir Francis Galton, a British anthropologist and a cousin of Charles Darwin, began his observations of fingerprints as a means of identification in the 1880's. In 1903 the New York State Prison system began the first systematic use of fingerprints in U.S. for criminals.

And now the world is in the age of automated fingerprint identification systems which are used both for security and identification.