Fingerprint quality per individual finger type: A large-scale study on real operational data

Even though some initial works have shown on small sets of data that not all fingerprints present the same level of utility for recognition purposes, there is still insufficient data-supported evidence to understand the impact that finger type may have on fingerprint quality and, in turn, also on fingerprint comparison. The present work addresses this still under-researched topic, on a large-scale database of operational data containing 10-print impressions of over 18,000 subjects. The results show a noticeable difference in the quality level of fingerprints produced by each of the 10 fingers and also between the dominant and non-dominant hands. Based on these observations, several recommendations are made regarding: 1) the selection of fingers to be captured depending on the context of the application; 2) improvement in the usability of scanners and the capturing protocols; 3) improvement in the development, ergonomics and positioning of the acquisition devices; and 4) improvement of recognition algorithms by incorporating information on finger type and handedness.