Fingerprint facts for kids

A fingerprint created by the friction ridge structure

A fingerprint is a special mark left by a human finger on a surface. Your fingers have tiny raised lines and grooves, like miniature mountains and valleys. These patterns are called friction ridges. What's amazing is that everyone has unique fingerprint patterns. No two people, not even identical twins, have the exact same fingerprints! This makes them super useful for telling people apart.

Scientists who study crime, called forensic scientists, use different methods to find and collect fingerprints. They use these prints to help identify people.

Today, people are also talking about using fingerprints with electronic devices. This can help identify someone using a phone or computer.

Understanding Fingerprint Patterns

Fingerprints have different shapes and designs. For a long time, people stored fingerprints on paper. They used special systems to sort them based on their patterns. This made it easier to find a specific person's prints in a huge collection. One famous way to sort them was called the Henry system.

The Three Main Patterns

The Henry system helps us understand the three basic types of fingerprint patterns. These are:

• Loop: This pattern looks like a loop or a hairpin. It starts on one side of the finger, curves around, and then exits on the same side. Loops are the most common type, making up about 60-65% of all fingerprints.
• Whorl: This pattern looks like a circle or a spiral. It has at least one ridge that makes a complete circle. Whorls are the second most common, found in about 30-35% of fingerprints.
• Arch: This pattern looks like a gentle hill or a wave. The ridges rise in the middle and then fall on the other side. Arches are the rarest type, making up only about 5% of all fingerprints.

Other Pattern Details

Sometimes, patterns can have even more specific names:

• Radial loops are a type of loop that points towards your thumb, which is the side closer to your radius bone in your arm.
• Whorls can be divided into smaller groups like plain whorls, accidental whorls, or double loop whorls.
• Arches can also be plain arches or tented arches, which have a sharper peak like a tent.

Related pages

• Face detection

Images for kids

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  The friction ridges on a finger

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  Exemplar prints on paper using ink

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  Fingerprint being scanned

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  3D fingerprint

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  Use of fine powder and brush to reveal latent fingerprints

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  Fingerprint dusting of a burglary scene

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  A city fingerprint identification room

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  Latent fingerprint analysis process

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  Nine fingerprint patterns identified by Jan Evangelista Purkyně

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  Fingerprints taken by William Herschel 1859/60

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  Fingerprints used instead of signatures on an Indian legal document of 1952

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  Female clerical employees of the Los Angeles Police Department being fingerprinted and photographed in 1928

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  The fingerprint sensor of a Lenovo ThinkPad T440p, released in 2013

See also

In Spanish: Huella dactilar para niños