How are people identified by their fingerprints?
Friction skin structure is used to identify impressions of fingers, palms, and feet as having been made by a particular person. This type of skin is made up of ridges which are both permanent and unique, barring advanced injury. The size, shape and relative positions of structures of friction skin features are compared. With sufficient quality and quantity of these features in correspondence, an identification is made. There is no set minimum number of features that must be in correspondence, it is through experience, training, and the process of verification that latent print identification standards are determined.
