INFLUENCE OF SKIN DISEASES WHILE DEVELOPING FINGERPRINTS

By Aditi Saxena

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Meet Aditi Saxena. She is currently pursuing a bachelor's degree in forensic science. She has her natives from Uttar Pradesh. She has keen interest in researching and reviewing new areas of the domain.

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ABSTRACT

Skin diseases can have a significant impact on the development of fingerprints. In some cases, skin diseases can cause the ridges on the fingertips to be distorted or destroyed, making it difficult or impossible to identify someone based on their fingerprints. Other skin diseases can cause the fingerprints to be faint or smudged, making them more difficult to capture.

In this review paper, we will discuss the different ways that skin diseases can affect fingerprint development. We will also discuss the challenges that skin diseases pose for fingerprint identification and the potential solutions to these challenges.

The ridges on the fingertips are formed during fetal development. The epidermis, the outer layer of the skin, begins to thicken and form ridges around the 13th week of pregnancy. The ridges continue to develop throughout fetal development and are fully formed by the 24th week of pregnancy.

Skin diseases can affect fingerprint development in a number of ways. Some skin diseases can cause the ridges on the fingertips to be distorted or destroyed. This can happen if the skin is damaged by inflammation, infection, or trauma. Other skin diseases can cause the ridges on the fingertips to be faint or smudged. This can happen if the skin is dry, oily, or scaly.

The type and severity of the skin disease can also affect fingerprint development. Some skin diseases, such as eczema and psoriasis, can cause mild changes to the fingerprints. Other skin diseases, such as scleroderma and dermatomyositis, can cause more severe changes to the fingerprints.

INTRODUCTION

Fingerprint recognition is one of the most often used technologies all over the world. However, a problem arises in the case of people with some kind of skin disease, disallowing them to use fingerprint scanning technology in order to authenticate themselves. Skin diseases represent an important issue in fingerprint recognition. Although precise numbers are hard to calculate, it is estimated that 20-25% of people suffer from some kind of skin disease [1]. Fingerprints have been used for personal identification for many decades and their matching accuracy has been found to be very high. It has been empirically determined that the fingerprints of identical twins are different and so are the prints on each finger of the same person [2]. However, fingerprints of a small fraction of the population might be unsuitable for automatic identification because of genetic factors, aging, diseases, or environmental and occupational reasons (cuts and bruises on fingerprints of manual workers). fingerprint is a representation of a pattern created by the epidermis consisting of interleaved ridges and valleys. The epidermis is the topmost layer constituting skin, together with the dermis (true skin) and subcutaneous (fat) layer (see Figure1.1) [3]. Fingerprint ridges form through a combination of genetic and environmental factors in a process similar to the growth of capillaries and blood vessels in angiogenesis. Injuries usually do not affect the underlying ridge structure thus the original pattern often emerges once new skin regrows. [4]

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