Fingerprint Test Tells Much More Than Identity

Mike sends in the story of a new fingerprint technology with interesting potential for both crime detection and rights violations; there are also intriguing possibilities in fighting cancer. "Using a variation of mass spectrometry called 'desorption electrospray ionization' or 'Desi,' a fingerprint can identify what the person has been touching — drugs, explosives, or poisons, for example. Writing in the Friday issue of the journal Science, R. Graham Cooks, a professor of chemistry at Purdue University, and his colleagues describe how the technique could find a wider application in crime investigations. As it becomes cheaper and more widely available, the Desi technology has potential ethical implications, Cooks said. Instead of drug tests, a company could surreptitiously check for illegal drug use of its employees by analyzing computer keyboards after the employees have gone home, for instance."

Unlikely

[Xacid]

I think it's highly unlikely that this would prove to be an effective measure of drug testing honestly. Think of the hands you shake, doors you touch, hand rails, etc etc. Need I continue?

But from the nerd standpoint I gotta say - this is a pretty damned cool trick.

G A T T A C A

[gblackwo]

It is a slippery slope.

Reasonable proof?

[tick_and_bash]

Would this technology actually be able to prove that I am an active drug user, or would it just indicate that I have come into contact with the substance? (Money is mostly likely to have been exposed to drugs.) At the very least, I can see that it would suggest that some employees may need to learn to wash their hands after using the bathroom.

Re:Reasonable proof?

[DeadManCoding]

And that's my thought. It's well known that a significant portion of US currency has trace amounts of cocaine on it. While I loathe to link the site, it does provide some evidence: Cocaine Found on Money [foxnews.com]

So how does this analyzer determine who's an active drug user or just an innocent? Is cocaine on the keyboard enough evidence to require a drug test from an employee? Since the keyboard is company property, is it legal to scan it for trace amount of illegal drugs? Too many questions on this one...

It all needs to be vetted

[postbigbang]

Nice CSI work, but before this will be admitted in a court, it'll have to go through immense amounts of testing. Soon, they'll be able to follow us by the DNA in dead skin we shed as we travel.

See Mikey? Bubba was whizzin in the woods. His DNA is all over the place....

Re:Privacy

[Ethanol-fueled]

As I implied above, many of us feel that we have to use clean-test kits to pass pre-employment drug screening because Marijuana is illegal and dosen't leave the body as readily as other drugs do. I really don't see how smoking a marijuana cigarette is much worse than a couple beers after work.

Perhaps I'm not fair to the harder drug users as I agree that somebody has a problem if they need a clean-test kid to rid themselves of coke, meth, or heroin before a drug test.

Re:Privacy

[negRo_slim]

Then everyday before work I would sprinkle a little crystal on the coffee pot handle.

I think you over estimate the amount of drug needed to be found for any sort of conclusive judgment on the employee. The fact that most, if not all, keyboards would have some undesirable substance on 'em. And that is similar to the problem they have with current drug tests and the solution, there is a cut off limit which assumes some degree of inaccuracy in the test and prescribes a limit of substance found to ensure its above and beyond what could be considered reasonable when the amount of inaccuracy of any given test is considered.

Just to throw it out there I blame a weak American populace for rolling over and allowing the establishment of the drug testing industry. As the most obvious flaw is with marijuana as it can stay in your system for a month or more under the right circumstances. While even heavy users of very heavy drugs have a 3-4 day turn around before they are clean... AT MOST. That includes methamphetamine, cocaine, hydrocodone and alcohol.

Re:Signed?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't believe you are modded informative. Some of these moderators must fail at picking up subtle humor... Still, my question has yet to be answered with the real reasoning.

False Positives

[lobiusmoop]

This reminds me of the case of the Birmingham Six [wikipedia.org] here in the UK, where part of the evidence against them - the Griess test [wikipedia.org] - which was supposed to prove handling of nitrate-based explosives - was later overturned when it was discovered that simply having handled laminated playing cards could generate a false positive in the test.

Another way to look at it:

[Ihlosi]

By touching a fingerprint reader, you're picking up traces of whatever the person(s) fingerprinted before you have touched.

Remember this simple fact if you're not a US citizen and travel to the States next time. Have you ever wondered what all those people who were fingerprinted before you touched ?

Testing Positive For Drug Contact

[nick_davison]

Why, yes, I have touched US currency. That's grounds for termination now?

news.yahoo.com [yahoo.com]

This also comes within a week of Barry George being released after being wrongfully imprisoned for the murder of British TV presenter, Jill Dando. In his case [bbc.co.uk], a particle of gun powder was detected on him and this was used to argue he was clearly the murderer. Eight years of his life gone, the conviction was ruled unsafe because the defense weren't allowed to point out the entirely true fact: a single particle proves absolutely nothing and is well within normal contamination levels.

Shows like CSI are incredibly dangerous. They lead us to assume that just because we can detect something, it somehow proves guilt. A single particle of gun powder goes not prove you fired a specific murder weapon. Traces of drugs on your banknotes don't prove they were involved in drug dealing (though police forces throughout the U.S. deliberately abuse that false assumption to merit seizing the money). Traces of drugs on someone's fingertips prove nothing more than they came in contact with U.S. currency which has been found to have up to 1,300 micrograms of cocaine per bill.

doomed to fail

[slashmojo]

check for illegal drug use of its employees by analyzing computer keyboards after the employees have gone home

Speaking as one who used to work nights cleaning offices of a very large global IT consultant during my student days and being a comp sci student alone at night in an office full of fancy computers with the latest software, I was basically like a kid in a candy store.. my prints may well have found their way onto quite a few keyboards in that place.. ;)

Do you know what happens in your office in the dead of night?