Will fingerprints change after we die? The answer surprised everyone!

Quite a lot of people wonder how long a person's fingerprints exist after death. Is this still a reliable evidence for the police to conduct further investigations?

Perhaps a couple of times you watch a criminal movie, you've caught sight of investigators trying to press the corpse's index finger into their mobile phone screen, trying to unlock and clue the case in phone data.

But life is not a dream. In the movie, that's all, the reality is very hard to do. Once the cell dies, it loses all of its charge and cannot activate the phone's fingerprint sensor, and of course does not open the lock.

In fact, fingerprints change after death.

That may cause you to ask the question: Can a person's fingerprints change after death and can we use fingerprints to identify them until?

If little is known about this issue, you may think that fingerprints are something that cannot be changed. But in fact, the answer is: Yes.

A study published by the National Academy of Sciences, fingerprint identification became less reliable when the interval between two markings increased, indicating that fingerprints, in fact, could change a bit throughout a person's life.

However, to identify a person who is alive or just dead (if the body is well preserved), this method is still quite reliable.

In the case of a dead person, the fingers can stiffen due to the phenomenon of deadly cramps, we can use a special tool that allows printing without rolling the fingertip.

However, the job becomes much more difficult with a decomposed or dried corpse, or soaked in water to soften the skin. But that does not mean impossible.

Scientists have researched and developed fingerprint printing methods.

Medical examiners can surgically remove the hands or fingers of the dead and send them to a more technologically advanced laboratory.

For example, for severely damaged skin, silicone can be used to create specimens that retain details of the lines. Those impressions can then be photographed and used in identification.

Scientists have received quite good results in the research and development of fingerprint printing methods.

Since 2013, researchers have looked at the effectiveness of a technique called heat treatment .

In it the liquid is extracted from the rest of the body and is used to restore strength and volume of fingers to use them to print fingerprints.

Of the 400 corpses in different stages of decomposition, fingerprints can be obtained from about three-quarters of cases. In 11% of other cases, we can get a good enough print to narrow the results accordingly.

Usable biometric data is taken from a corpse for a maximum of 4 days in warm weather.

How long can fingerprints be used? Unfortunately there is not much research on that topic.

However, a study published on December 22, 2016 at IEEE Xplore, biometric data can be used from a maximum of 4 days in warm weather and 50 days in winter.

Tell you another interesting thing: According to Apple's website, Touch ID will not work on its own after it has not been used for 48 hours. Then, we have to enter the password or passcode to confirm it, then unlock it.