AFIS vs Biometric fingerprint systems

Both Automated Fingerprint Identification Systems (AFIS) and biometric fingerprint systems are now used more as identifying individuals.

AFIS was actually developed by the police department for identifying persons from over a large record of files. On the other hand, Biometric Fingerprinting Systems was developed for business purposes that replaced ID cards, passwords and other methods used for identifying.

While AFIS is used to recognize persons who do not want to be identified, Biometric Fingerprinting Systems is used by persons who want to be identified.

AFIS mainly deals with large scale identification that is signaling out a person from millions of others. Biometric Fingerprinting Systems is a one to one identifying and it does not involve searching millions of the records.

Another difference that can be seen between the two finger printing systems is in the response time. It can take hours for identifying a person through AFIS. But it takes only seconds to identify a person through the Biometric Fingerprinting System.

In terms of accuracy also, one can come across difference between the two. While the AFIS system returns about five top candidates in comparison, the Biometric Fingerprinting System returns only a single response like yes or no.

In AFIS system, the entire finger from nail to nail is captured. Sometimes all the ten fingers are captured in an AFIS system. In the Biometric Fingerprinting System, only the center portion of the finger is captured.

Another difference that can be seen between AFIS and Biometric Fingerprinting System is in the storage of fingerprint images. In AFIS systems, the finger print images are generally stored whereas the images are not stored in Biometric Fingerprinting System.

While AFIS systems require backend infrastructure for storing, matching and duplicate resolution, there is no need for such a backend infrastructure in Biometric Fingerprinting System.

At last, when talking of the cost, AFIS is costlier than Biometric Fingerprinting System.

Summary

1. AFIS was developed by the police department for identifying persons from over a large record of files. On the other hand, Biometric Fingerprinting Systems was developed for business purposes that replaced ID cards, passwords and other methods used for identifying.

2. AFIS mainly deals with large-scale identification that is signaling out a person from millions of others. Biometric Fingerprinting Systems is a one to one identifying and it does not involve searching millions of the records.

3. It can take hours for identifying a person through AFIS. But it takes only seconds to identify a person through the Biometric Fingerprinting System.

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