Secrets of FBI 2

[zafrin.eng]

Even with no arrests, your fingerprints are probably on file in Clarksburg, West Virginia

iStock/IgorKozeev

If you’ve had your fingerprints taken as part of a background check to, say, get a driver’s license or a job or to buy a gun, the results likely live in the FBI’s Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS). This database of more than 100 million fingerprints is located in a huge “data campus” in Clarksburg, West Virginia, about 250 miles west of the main FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C. Even with so many on file, according to the FBI its system can match a set in about 12 minutes.