I once had to be fingerprinted for a background check, and was told if I didn’t finish my business in 18 months, my fingerprints would expire and I’d have to have them taken again. No, they couldn’t run the same prints again for an update. That always seemed strange to me, because my fingerprints aren’t going to change -or will they? Can you lose your fingerprints by wearing them out? Will they regenerate after an injury? Can fingerprints change over your lifetime? Are there people born without fingerprints? These questions and more are explained in a post all about fingerprints at Today I Found Out. -via Nag on the Lake
India has a comprehensive national ID card now. On its introduction, a massive effort was made to record fingerprints and retinal scans of every person. Some people, particularly children under 10, the elderly and laborers in certain work areas, were particularly difficult to record. Some laborers had worn their fingerprints off to the point that the machines could not distinguish them (If they allowed the skin on their fingers to grow back, the fingerprints would have been restored).
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