The lawyers also expressed concern that the police were improperly building a fingerprint database of people charged with minor offenses.

We don't know what they do with that fingerprint database.

City, county and state records are checked, as are federal fingerprint databases.

Some wonder if fingerprint databases can be protected from abuse.

Two hours after starting the patient search, the fingerprint database brought back a name: Peter Wayne Bell.

"You're in the national fingerprint database," Walker said.

In the same way, a national ballistic fingerprint database might help law enforcement officials catch the Washington sniper.

Her project of a centrally organised fingerprint database for passports won an award as well.

"We'll know just as soon as the fingerprint databases get back to us."

That is not as high as the 31-percent success rate for the city's fingerprint database.