Digital Fingerprints on Social Media: From Exposure to Identification

Resumo

Introduction: Human identification through fingerprints remains central to Forensic Science. The increasing circulation of digital images displaying papillary ridges and their particularities, mainly on social media, raises new opportunities and challenges for human identification (Jara San Miguel et al., 2021).

Aim: To review the existing scientific literature on the use of fingerprints captured by digital devices, identify emerging technological and forensic trends, assess current limitations, and highlight research gaps that warrant further investigation.

Materials and Methods: An exploratory search was conducted in the scientific databases PubMed, Scopus, ScienceDirect, and IEEE Xplore, using the terms ‘fingerprints’ AND ‘online’ AND (‘photos’ OR ‘photographs’ OR ‘pictures’ OR ‘images’) AND “identification”. The inclusion criteria were studies addressing photographic capture of fingerprints, image quality, minutiae extraction, integration with AFIS systems, written in English and with full text available. Documents without peer review, editorials, reviews, studies on other biometric modalities without comparison with fingerprints, and duplicates were excluded.

Results: Despite technical limitations, it is possible to obtain identifiable biometric patterns from photographs using digital optimisation and image processing techniques (Bansal et al., 2012). Studies report successful matching with AFIS databases and reliable identification in experimental contexts and forensic cases (Singla et al., 2020). The effectiveness of identification is influenced by factors such as lighting, finger position and angle, resolution, and visual noise (Bansal et al., 2012). In general, the literature demonstrates that digital images of fingerprints can provide valid forensic evidence for human identification, although greater methodological standardisation and improvements in processing and selection of digital images are needed to maximise reliability.

Discussion: Technological advances have brought informal photography closer to traditional fingerprint collection methods, but the lack of standardised protocols limits reproducibility. The literature points to discrepancies regarding the reliability of images captured mainly in smartphones and in uncontrolled contexts (Singla et al., 2020).

Conclusions: The review highlights significant technical potential, but also the need for further study of the conditions that influence image quality and feature extraction, supporting the relevance of continuing research on the use of digital fingerprint images for human identification.