Fingerprints have been used to confirm or determine peoples' identities for over one hundred years now, but new technology is allowing them to be put to another use - drug testing. Intelligent Fingerprinting (a spin-off company affiliated with the UK's University of East Anglia) has just unveiled a prototype portable device that can detect the presence of illicit drugs or other substances in a person's system by analyzing the sweat in their fingerprints.
The device uses disposable cartridges, which reportedly do not require specialist handling or biohazard precautions. Also, because one person's drug results are tied to a visual record of their fingerprints, the technology is said to be almost impossible to cheat, or to dispute. The entire process only takes a few minutes.
Possible applications include workplace drug screening, criminal forensic work, and homeland security. David Russell, CTO of Intelligent Fingerprinting and Professor of Chemistry at UEA's School of Chemistry, Intelligent Fingerprinting has stated that down the road, the device could also be used to detect non-illicit drugs or other health markers. It is scheduled to go into production next year.
Scientists from Imperial College London have also been researching the analysis of fingerprint residue to determine factors such as the diet, race and sex of a suspected criminals.
Besides, i doubt it works. Just handling a couple dollar bills will get you a positive. This is a daydream waiting to happen. Go to a strip club and tell me you\'ll come out positive hahaha...
They can\'t even figure out that the guys who make the voting machines are idiots and that anybody learning a programming language for less than a week could write a working replacement in a day, I seriously doubt that this will ever work just as the TSA scanners have never found crap. It\'s just going to waste our tax dollars again. It just makes me mad that we can\'t just fire all these morons from government positions that make decisions to do stuff with our money out of their asses.
So, in both cases, how accurate are the results?
On final thing to consider. This device tests for the presence of chemicals on the user\'s finger tips. Doesn\'t that leave open great possibility for false positives?