When police take your fingerprints, the prints are captured either on an inked card or by a digital live-scan device, searched within minutes against FBI and state biometric databases, and stored indefinitely in a federal system that can link you to prior arrests, outstanding warrants, and unsolved cases. They generally stay on file long after your encounter ends, and removing them takes more than a dismissed charge.
Whether You Can Refuse
Fingerprinting after a lawful arrest is not optional. The Supreme Court held in Maryland v. King that taking biometric identifiers from someone arrested on probable cause for a serious offense is a reasonable booking procedure under the Fourth Amendment, requiring no separate warrant.1Justia Law. Maryland v King, 569 US 435 (2013) The Department of Justice has long taken the position that fingerprinting a lawfully seized person does not implicate the Fourth Amendment’s protections against unreasonable searches.2U.S. Department of Justice. Criminal Resource Manual 251 – Fingerprinting, Search and Seizure Resisting booking can lead to additional charges.
Outside of arrest, it’s different. If an officer asks for your prints during an investigation and you haven’t been arrested, your cooperation is generally voluntary unless a court has ordered you to submit.
How Your Prints Are Captured
Most agencies use digital live scan. You place your fingers on a glass plate, and the device reads your ridge patterns electronically, with immediate quality feedback so smudged prints can be retaken on the spot. Some agencies still use ink and paper as a backup, rolling each finger across an inking plate and then across a card. Either method captures ten rolled prints plus flat “slap” impressions of all four fingers on each hand and both thumbs, used to verify sequence and accuracy.3Federal Bureau of Investigation. Recording Legible Fingerprints
What the System Does With Them in the First Few Minutes
During booking, your name, personal information, mug shot, and fingerprints are recorded and submitted to the FBI.4U.S. Department of Justice COPS Office. TAP and the Arrest, Booking, and Disposition Cycle The prints are searched against the FBI’s Next Generation Identification system and state databases. The initial search usually takes minutes.
If there’s a match, the system surfaces your criminal history, any outstanding warrants, and any unsolved cases where your prints match a latent print from the scene. That last piece matters: incoming submissions are automatically checked against the Unsolved Latent File, so your prints can generate a lead in a case you’ve never heard of.5Federal Bureau of Investigation. Next Generation Identification (NGI) What officers learn from this search can affect bail, charging decisions, and whether you’re held on anything from another jurisdiction.
Where Your Prints Are Stored
The FBI’s Next Generation Identification system is the world’s largest biometric repository and replaced the older Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System. It holds fingerprint and criminal history information for both criminal and non-criminal records.5Federal Bureau of Investigation. Next Generation Identification (NGI) The statutory authority is 28 U.S.C. § 534, which directs the Attorney General to acquire, classify, and preserve identification records and exchange them with authorized federal, state, tribal, and local agencies.6Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 USC 534 – Acquisition, Preservation, and Exchange of Identification Records and Information
NGI holds more than fingerprints. The FBI describes it as “multimodal,” incorporating palm prints through the National Palm Print System, iris scans, and facial recognition photos through the Interstate Photo System.5Federal Bureau of Investigation. Next Generation Identification (NGI) State and local agencies also maintain their own databases, and information flows both ways: local arrests feed into the national system, and federal records are accessible to state agencies during background checks and investigations.
Prints submitted outside the criminal context end up in the same place. Security clearance investigations require fingerprints,7Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency. Fingerprints and many states require them for professional licenses in fields like healthcare, education, and law enforcement. Those civil submissions are stored in NGI alongside criminal records.8National Institute of Standards and Technology. Next Generation Identification
Ongoing Monitoring Through Rap Back
A single fingerprinting event can trigger monitoring that lasts for years. The FBI’s Rap Back service lets authorized agencies receive automatic electronic notification whenever someone whose prints are already in the system is arrested again.9Federal Bureau of Investigation. Privacy Impact Assessment – NGI Rap Back Service
Rap Back works for both criminal and civil fingerprint submissions. If your employer submitted your prints for a background check and enrolled in Rap Back, they can be notified of any future arrest reported to the FBI. The notifications can also include case dispositions, additions to sex offender registries, and warrant information.9Federal Bureau of Investigation. Privacy Impact Assessment – NGI Rap Back Service Your prints don’t just sit in a database. They’re actively searched against new submissions.
How Long They Stay on File
Criminal fingerprints are retained indefinitely unless a specific legal action removes them. There is no automatic expiration. If you were fingerprinted at 22, those prints are still searchable decades later.
Civil fingerprints submitted for background checks are also retained and continually searched against incoming criminal submissions.9Federal Bureau of Investigation. Privacy Impact Assessment – NGI Rap Back Service The FBI keeps them regardless of whether they matched any criminal history at the time of submission.
Getting Fingerprints Removed After Expungement
If a court grants an expungement, the record can be fully deleted from the FBI’s system, but only if your state actually notifies the FBI. This is where the process frequently breaks down.
The FBI’s policy is that an expungement means deletion, and the record will no longer exist in NGI once the expungement is processed. But the FBI won’t act on its own. It requires the State Identification Bureau or the agency that originally submitted the prints to send the expungement request.10Federal Bureau of Investigation. NGI Audit Policy Reference Guide When a state record ceases to exist because of a court-ordered expungement, the state must remove its identifier from the Interstate Identification Index and submit documentation to expunge all associated arrest data.
The gap isn’t in federal policy. It’s in state follow-through. If your state doesn’t transmit the expungement notification to the FBI, your record sits in the federal system despite the court order. If you discover that an expunged record still appears in your FBI file, contact your state identification bureau first and confirm the order was forwarded. If it wasn’t, push them to do it. You can also challenge the record directly with the FBI, which will then contact the state on your behalf.
One narrow point if the record is juvenile: state expungement statutes vary significantly on whether fingerprints are covered. About 25 states and the District of Columbia allow young people to petition to expunge both police and court records, but only some specifically include fingerprints. Idaho and Michigan, for example, allow expungement of fingerprints and DNA along with court records. Washington permits expungement and destruction of police and court records but explicitly excludes fingerprints and photographs.11Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Expunging Juvenile Records Check whether your state’s statute reaches biometric data or stops at court files.
Checking and Correcting Your FBI Record
You have the right to see what the FBI has on file about you. The FBI calls it an Identity History Summary Check, which is essentially your rap sheet. The fee is $18, and you need to submit a set of rolled fingerprints to verify your identity.12Federal Bureau of Investigation. Identity History Summary Checks Frequently Asked Questions You can submit electronically and provide fingerprints at a participating U.S. Post Office, or mail everything to the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services Division in Clarksburg, West Virginia.13eCFR. 28 CFR Part 16 Subpart C – Production of FBI Identification Records
If the record contains errors, 28 CFR § 16.34 lays out the correction process. You can apply directly to the agency that submitted the incorrect information, or send your challenge to the FBI, which forwards it to the contributing agency and requests verification or correction. The FBI updates the record only after receiving an official response from the original source.14eCFR. 28 CFR 16.34 – Procedure to Obtain Change, Correction or Updating of Identification Records
A dismissed charge that was never updated, an arrest attributed to the wrong person, or a missing disposition can surface in employment background checks, professional licensing reviews, and future encounters with law enforcement for years. Catching those errors early is far easier than explaining them later.