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When last I read up on fingerprinting it was pretty dodgy - the problem being not that it's inaccurate, but that nobody really knows how accurate it is. Apparen

When last I read up on fingerprinting it was pretty dodgy - the problem being not that it's inaccurate, but that nobody really knows how accurate it is. Apparently the professional society that analysts all belong to forbids its members from participating in studies, taking the position that it's "100% accurate when done properly" (which is clearly meaningless). It's probably 4-5 years since I read about this, it'd be nice if things have changed.

staticautomatic 7y ago
I work in a consulting field where the professional society forbids its members from publishing statistics on client success. There are some good reasons it's generally frowned upon but it's also the only remotely objective measure of whether anyone actually benefits from your work.
phkahler 7y ago
>> Apparently the professional society that analysts all belong to forbids its members from participating in studies, taking the position that it's "100% accurate when done properly" Refusal to run a gauge R&R while insisting errors are due to the operator is a sure sign of a problem. If it hasn't been done, that's one thing but refusing to allow it is quite another.
- AnthonyMouse 7y ago
  It's the same problem as it is with most anything. They want to use huge databases, but to do that usefully you need an unrealistically low false positive rate. Even if the rate was actually really good -- something like 99.9% accuracy -- if you apply that to a database with a ten million people in it, you get ten thousand false positives, which is crap. If you pick one of the matches at random, they want to be able to claim that it's a 99.9% chance that it's them, but it's really a 99.99% chance that it isn't. Or worse, since it's possible the true perpetrator wasn't in the database. Even for things like DNA that theoretically can do better than 99.9%, you can't get much better than that in practice because before you can, the error rate starts to be dominated by human error rather than coincident matches.
Spooky23 7y ago
It’s even crazier because automatic fingerprint matching is controlled by a small cartel of awful companies.

staticautomatic 7y ago

I work in a consulting field where the professional society forbids its members from publishing statistics on client success. There are some good reasons it's generally frowned upon but it's also the only remotely objective measure of whether anyone actually benefits from your work.

phkahler 7y ago

>> Apparently the professional society that analysts all belong to forbids its members from participating in studies, taking the position that it's "100% accurate when done properly" Refusal to run a gauge R&R while insisting errors are due to the operator is a sure sign of a problem. If it hasn't been done, that's one thing but refusing to allow it is quite another.

AnthonyMouse 7y ago
It's the same problem as it is with most anything. They want to use huge databases, but to do that usefully you need an unrealistically low false positive rate. Even if the rate was actually really good -- something like 99.9% accuracy -- if you apply that to a database with a ten million people in it, you get ten thousand false positives, which is crap. If you pick one of the matches at random, they want to be able to claim that it's a 99.9% chance that it's them, but it's really a 99.99% chance that it isn't. Or worse, since it's possible the true perpetrator wasn't in the database. Even for things like DNA that theoretically can do better than 99.9%, you can't get much better than that in practice because before you can, the error rate starts to be dominated by human error rather than coincident matches.

Spooky23 7y ago

It’s even crazier because automatic fingerprint matching is controlled by a small cartel of awful companies.