Fingerprint detection: future prospects.

While significant fingerprint detection research has taken place over the last 25 years, surfaces still remain where fingermark development is problematic. In addition, while current capabilities provide a reasonable level of detection sensitivity on most common surfaces, they may be ineffective for the detection of weak fingermarks, or may not reveal sufficient ridge detail in such marks for identification purposes. For these reasons, latent fingermark detection remains an area where there is significant ongoing research around the world. A meeting of the International Fingerprint Research Group (IFRG) was recently held in Canberra, Australia, and was hosted by the Australian Federal Police. The purpose of this article is to summarise a number of areas of fingerprint detection research that were discussed at this IFRG meeting. This provides an insight into future prospects in this field and priority areas for research within the fingerprint detection discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]