Disappearing fingerprints

Text and research by Amira Irfan, Sharmeen Imran & Abrar Ayub Photography by Sarah Batool

Fading Identity: If the skin of fingerprints changes, biometric identification becomes a challenge

At 61 years of age, Gul Bibi is one of those people who were not able to benefit from the Covid-19 relief fund issued by the Government of Pakistan. She is a house cleaner who works at several houses to provide for her family. Due to her age and excessive contact with water while cleaning houses, Gul Bibi noticed her disappearing fingerprints at the age of 55. Since then, she has been deprived of various government relief programs that could guarantee her family's survival.

Gul reported at National Database & Registration Authority (NADRA) about this issue several times, but given the stringent requirements of the biometric scanning system, she has no fingerprints to prove her identification that she even exists. “I was asked to rub potatoes on my skin when I went to their office, and instead of suggesting a way out, they asked me to come back next time,” says Gul Bibi, and believes that she can never be a part of any government's schemes or get help from them.

Despite the long tradition of using fingerprints, the accuracy of identification and the compatibility of fingerprint schemes remain some of the key concerns.

“Biometric technology is slowly replacing conventional passwords and token-based electronic entries, signature-based branch service accesses, and PIN-based accesses in mobile banking and at ATMs,” says Irfan Farooq, a banker with 10 years of experience in the field. “As effective as it is for banking systems, we do observe elderly people often filing complaints and addressing issues of being locked out of their accounts,” says Irfan. He mentions a case he witnessed a few years ago where a retired man who had his savings account opened at his bank for several years was denied access to his own account.

The elasticity of skin decreases with age, due to which a lot of senior citizens have fingerprints that are difficult to identify, as stated in a news report.

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It is a serious concern for people who are affected because they cannot use biometric fingerprint recognition. They have to obtain a medical board certificate to permit the use of face identification or a different mark of identification.

The magnitude of this issue is widespread. It is not only confined to individuals of a certain age or gender, but it can affect anyone. A dermatologist, Heba Fareed, says, “Age doesn't matter because any person of any age can suffer from this issue due to different diseases”.

A forensic expert, Dr Farhat H. Mirza says that “It is generally rare for a person to lose fingerprints unless they are suffering from specific diseases—such as Leprosy, also known as Juzaam, in which the skin falls out; in some rare cases, it can be Adermatoglyphia, a genetic disorder which prevents the development of fingerprints”. Dr Farhat shares that the scarring on hands from doing tough jobs like stone-crushing and bricklaying are also possible reasons for fingerprints getting affected.

One widely known cause for fingerprint loss is the side effect of a drug which is particularly used only in cancer treatments. Certain Chemotherapeutic agents such as Capecitabine can cause the vanishing of fingerprints.

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To elucidate further, Mohammad Yousef, a 62-year-old cancer patient from Karachi, was denied access to travel abroad to the UK because he could not verify his biometrics. He developed grade 1 nausea, vomiting, loose bowels, and Hand-foot syndrome (HFS) after the second and third stages of chemotherapy. But after the fifth stage of chemotherapy, he developed grade 3 HFS, which further intensified the disappearance of his fingerprints.

“The government should be more considerate about such situations and should show leniency in this process for people like us who can’t afford additional troubles while travelling”, says Yousef, adding that these restrictions cause more stress to the individual, who then has to go through more exhausting processes of adhering to other reliable forms of identification.

The fingerprints lost generally grow back or are regenerated within a month as the skin becomes less elastic and the ridges thicken, provided they are lost due to some medical conditions.

Fingerprint disappearance, in some cases, is advantageous for certain people—mostly criminals who would not want the authorities to put them behind bars. People use different methods to remove their fingerprints. Drastic and commonly used methods include burning the skin or cutting off the fingertips. Fingerprint mutilation is not as effective as it sounds, because to completely obliterate the fingerprints, every layer of the skin should be removed.

Biometric identifications are an integral part of modern day lives. They are vital for security and identification. In times when fingerprint identifications are heavily used for employee identification, security reasons, financial transactions, travelling, immigrant identifications, and other day to day activities, the loss of fingerprints may have grave consequences. People who are suffering from the fading fingerprints suggest that other alternate mediums should be put into practice by governments to facilitate them.