SA researchers develop technique for fingerprint classification

South African researchers have developed a new technique for fingerprint classification and recognition, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research said.

"The structural fingerprint classifier ... is able to correctly classify a fingerprint with only partial information," the CSIR said.

New features speed up the recognition of prints.

"The technique is faster because it breaks down the overall database into smaller chunks to improve the performance of the fingerprint recognition system," the CSIR said.

In the old fingerprint recognition system, the templates were usually in one huge database and thousands of templates had to be sifted through.

The new technique is already being used by Home Affairs.

"This can contribute to the creation of much faster systems in the future," said the CSIR.