An Abundance of Data is the New Oxygen…Maybe

I previously wrote about how clean data is the new oxygen (stealing a phrase from someone else), but sometimes more data is better. Sometimes.

Let me use the fingerprint example. If you have a single fingerprint from one person, you have data that you can use to match against a person’s tenprint record.

Grok.

But if you have two fingerprints, then you have twice as much data for the match. And Mister Math tells us that ten fingerprints yields much more data.

Now there are cases where you don’t have all ten search prints. Perhaps you’re taking latent prints from a crime scene and the suspect didn’t carefully leave all ten prints. Or you’re using contactless fingerprint capture and for some reason didn’t get the full tenprint record. But if you can get all ten fingerprints for search, then your match accuracy increases.

But is an abundance of data better?

Only if it’s clean.

If finger numbers are misclassified, or if fingerprints from multiple people are mixed in the same individual record, or if the minutiae are not marked correctly, then the dirty data messes up your process.

Which is why the quality of data in a fingerprint database is important.

And if you need to talk about your fingerprint product’s quality assurance measures, Bredemarket can help. Book a free meeting with me to discuss your needs.

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