Through support of King county voters, the Regional Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) Program provides criminal identification services that officers, investigators, prosecutors, and corrections staff have all come to rely upon. The program is recognized for its high standards in quality, accuracy, and service. Its existence aids in solving crimes throughout King County, and contributes to the safety of both our officers and citizens.

Comparing Fingerprints in Minutes

At the heart of the program lies a computer system called AFIS, which stores and compares minutiae found in fingerprints from known individuals and from crime scenes (“latent prints”). A list of possible candidates is produced by AFIS in a matter of minutes. The fingerprint examiner then visually compares any potential ‘hits’. The Automated Fingerprint Identifcation System contains almost a million fingerprint records, and now also includes palm print records.

Providing Positive Identification

The King County Regional AFIS Program is comprised of much more than the AFIS itself. The program is designed to improve the ability of law enforcement and criminal justice agencies to not only identify and convict criminal offenders, but also to exclude or dismiss innocent subjects from suspicion. It allows law enforcement representatives to respond quickly and effectively to community concerns.

The program includes a network of Livescan devices designed to capture high quality fingerprints and to transmit them electronically to AFIS for fast identification. It also provides the equipment and staff to fingerprint and identify all inmates booked into county jails. This helps to identify possible wanted or dangerous offenders before they are released, even if they provide false names and incorrect information.

Helping to Solve Crimes

The AFIS Program provides the technology, equipment, and staff to recover and process fingerprints from major crime scenes. These are called latent prints. Without an AFIS computer, it is impossible for a fingerprint examiner to manually search the entire fingerprint file to identify a latent print. With AFIS, this same process takes only minutes.

Before AFIS, police needed to have a suspect in mind for fingerprints to be of use. With AFIS, a “cold search” can be performed, enabling police to solve crimes with no suspects. Thousands of suspects have been identified through the use of fingerprints since the inception of King County’s AFIS in 1988. This has led to convictions for murders, assaults, rapes, burglaries, and other crimes. Our latent fingerprint "hit rates" — the percentage of suspects identified by our system — is nearly double the national average.

Funding of the Regional Program

The King County AFIS Program is funded through a citizen-approved property tax levy. It is not part of the Sheriff’s Office or the Seattle Police Department budgets, as it serves all police agencies within King County.

Please see the AFIS Annual Report link for the most up-to-date program information.