FROM FBI.GOV

The FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Division is celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Biometric Technology Center.

The 360,000-square-foot building opened in 2015 on the CJIS Division campus in Clarksburg, West Virginia, with the goal of advancing investigative technologies like iris recognition, facial patterns, and palm prints.

In relation to the functions and services provided at CJIS, “It started with fingerprint data that enabled access to criminal history and the National Crime Information Center,” said CJIS Deputy Assistant Director Brian Griffith. “When the Department of Justice needed to figure out where the National Instant Criminal Background Check System would be housed, they thought what better place than right next to the criminal history information that's necessary to allow it to function. Biometrics, criminal history, and partnership with law enforcement became the nucleus of what CJIS has grown into today.”

From paper fingerprint files in cabinets to today’s advanced systems, CJIS has grown exponentially. Algorithms for fingerprints, latent prints, face, and iris have each been upgraded multiple times over the past decade, significantly increasing accuracy.

“We’re more quickly able to identify missing and deceased individuals or help with cold cases,” Griffith said. “It’s amazing to see how we help law enforcement agencies pull out very old case records and apply new technologies and techniques to solve them.”

The Biometric Technology Center has helped move innovations from the lab into the hands of those fighting crime and terrorism faster than ever.

Fingerprinting

In 2015, the FBI had only been processing fingerprints with the Next Generation Identification System for one year. There were 107 million master fingerprints on file. Now, the NGI repository holds 189 million master fingerprints, and the algorithm identification accuracy rate is 99.6%.

The technology 10 years ago lacked the ability to match poor quality prints or prints captured out of order or upside down. But now, improved technology effectively catches these prints despite common fingerprinting mistakes or the inability to capture prints properly.

Additionally, an NGI mobile app for FBI employees in the field allows for a variety of fingerprint transactions. The app is readily accessible on Bureau phones to scan fingerprints in cases of deceased individuals or criminal bookings, and quick identification results have a direct impact on the speed of the investigation.

“This helps bring closure to families within seconds to minutes or helps move an investigation further,” said Christin, an analyst in CJIS’s Biometric Services Section (BSS). “Our team provides that support while we're on the phone with them [agents] because you can be collecting fingerprints, but that doesn't mean that you're collecting quality fingerprints.”

"All these services are really serving law enforcement, whether it's affiliate offices, corrections, or your officers on the street with the goal of providing rapid and accurate identification for officer safety."

Angela Elliott, analyst, CJIS Biometric Services Section

An NGI mobile app is readily accessible on FBI phones to scan fingerprints in cases of deceased individuals or criminal bookings, and quick identification results have a direct impact on the speed of the investigation.

From the floods in North Carolina to the Baltimore Bridge collapse, Christin and her team are there to help law enforcement in the field who may have minimal fingerprinting experience. The team monitors fingerprint transactions as they happen, especially if there’s a crisis or large-scale event with many victims.

“We work with people who have never fingerprinted a deceased person in their life,” said Christin. “We always try to make ourselves available because the job is to help victims be identified. It’s a new process for them, so we help keep them calm and walk them through how to collect quality prints because if we don't, you could miss who that person was and not be able to identify someone.”

Fingerprint technology advancement is a primary reason why the FBI started the Deceased Persons Identification (DPI) Services. It’s a targeted outreach effort to law enforcement partners related to cold cases asking them to resubmit their prints, as the NGI System may now be able to return an identity, or at least an investigative lead, on a previously unidentified subject or victim because of these advancements in technology.

The NGI mobile app has other capabilities besides identifying deceased individuals.

“If there's a bank robbery and a latent print was left on scene, we can gather fingerprints to eliminate everybody in the room with coordination with the Laboratory Division,” said Christin. “There’s also FBI civil vetting for employees, contractors, or other people that are coming in and out of some federal buildings.”

The NGI System searches not only FBI records, but other federal databases with a combined 500 million fingerprints on file.

Having this technology readily available in the field is helping to build the repository of prints across the board.

“We have our Counterterrorism Division doing transactions overseas, bookings at the borders, and it’s also used for mass arrests,” said Christin. “They're doing traditional bookings without the need to go back to a field office, and it helps build that system [NGI]. If those individuals were to ever leave and had a fingerprint hit, they would be stopped.”

Christin, who started out as a fingerprint examiner, finds the work to advance fingerprint identification technology and accessibility incredibly rewarding.

“I'm very proud of the program and the things that I get to do,” said Christin. “To be able to know that you're helping bring closure to that family, and you played a small piece to the puzzle is rewarding enough.”

RISC

Another way fingerprint technology has improved is through the development of the Repository for Individuals of Special Concern (RISC).

This file contains only a portion of the criminal master files. According to Angela Elliott, an analyst in BSS, “These are your most wanted fugitives, terrorists, persons of special interest, sex offenders, and immigration violators. Today, there's almost 7 million subjects within this subset.”

The RISC device, unlike the fingerprinting device that Christin’s team uses, only requires two fingerprints to find a potential identification match for these criminals in an average of 5.4 seconds.

“This process is completely lights-out, meaning no examiner looks at what you do,” said Elliott. “What you get back in 5.4 seconds is a red, yellow, or green response. Red means highly probable. This is one of the subjects in the RISC and could be a terrorist, fugitive, or an immigration violator. Green means there's no record within the RISC repository.” Yellow indicates a possible hit.

Law enforcement officers using a RISC device can see the results on the device itself as well as on the laptop in their cruisers. If the RISC search comes back as a probable match to an individual in the repository, officers can obtain a complete criminal arrest record within seconds and take further necessary actions.

RISC has been used since 2013. In 2024, there were over 800,000 RISC searches, equating to around 2,300 daily. Today, there are 36 states using RISC devices to help identify dangerous criminals.

In January of 2025, RISC was vital in the identification and apprehension of a high-profile criminal in Florida.

“Law enforcement officers were just driving around using the license plate reader, and the license plate did not match the truck,” said Elliott. “They pulled the truck over, and when they ran the driver’s license he [the driver] gave, it wasn't him. So, they ran his fingerprints with RISC and found out he was Donald Fields, an FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitive.”

Despite the development of new biometric tools, fingerprints remain a critical piece of investigations of any size.

“All these services are really serving law enforcement, whether it's affiliate offices, corrections, or your officers on the street with the goal of providing rapid and accurate identification for officer safety,” said Elliott.

Iris

In recent years, law enforcement has been looking to the human eye as another option in biometric identification—and an avenue to improving officer safety.

Like fingerprints with their distinct patterns, "the iris has up to 240 unique points of identification,” said analyst Dennis Cutlip, who works on the iris team in BSS. “It creates like its own little QR code that doesn’t change throughout your life after eight months in the womb.”

The technology for iris identification is so sophisticated that it can pick up on prosthetic eyes or pattern lenses used to alter the iris scan. It can even be used postmortem.

“It's 99% accurate, just like fingerprints,” said Cutlip. “The only difference is it's contactless. The average capture time is two seconds, and the average search time is four to six seconds.”

Iris identification is currently used in seven states and by eight federal agencies for criminal identification. The contactless capture is an important safety measure for officers gathering biometric information during a booking, as the camera can capture an iris image from 12 to 36 inches away rather than officers manually taking a suspect’s fingerprints.

Cutlip said his team’s goal is to get iris identification in the hands of every law enforcement officer to help them identify criminals and create safer communities.

In the years since the first use of iris identification technology, there have been 6.2 million sets uploaded to the iris repository. This repository is continually growing as the FBI gets more law enforcement agencies on board.

“One of our goals is to save an officer's life,” said Cutlip. “Sometimes people don't want to try new biometric technology, but we explain to them it may only take two seconds to take this picture and potentially save even one life.”

The FBI is partnering with federal and state criminal justice agencies to expand the use of the iris biometric for post-conviction processes such as inmate or detention chain of custody, supervised release, sex offender registration, and probation/parole programs. The advantages that the iris biometric can bring to the entire criminal justice process through the quick, contactless capture and the rapid, accurate identification response cannot be rivaled today.

Impact

The CJIS Division continues to explore new technologies and provide the FBI and law enforcement with new ways of solving cases and protecting the public.

These advancements will continue to position the Biometric Technology Center as an integral part of the FBI’s mission.

?“The FBI has done a phenomenal job at identifying how we can use artificial intelligence in an ethical way,” said CJIS Division Assistant Director Timothy Ferguson. “Our algorithms are phenomenal for fingerprint recognition and iris, with 99% accuracy on positive identifications thanks to the use of artificial intelligence and the advancements in emerging technologies.”

Partnerships are continually necessary for these improvements to become widely impactful.

“One of the things we have to do in the CJIS Division that we do quite frequently is partner with our industry and talk about what the needs are—and what we see the needs for the future to be,” said Ferguson.

Ferguson said the next 10 years will be even better than the last.

“The folks here recognize that we have to continue to improve in order to make sure that officers go home every day to their families,” he said. “That’s what the American public expects from the CJIS Division. You come out here and you see this campus and you see the phenomenal facilities that we have, but really, it's about the people that are here and about the fact that they're dedicated to the mission, and they really care about making sure the American people get the service that they deserve.”

Editor's Note: Photos showing the Biometrics facility and the law enforcement officer are from FBI.gov. The ribbon cutting photo is from 2015 as is the photo of the late Reverend Father Hilarion Cann, who served as the CJIS chaplain.

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