Revolutionary technology offers promise in fingerprint detection

Ploughshares Innovations was promoting new technology at the UK Security Exhibition held on 29th and 30th November in London which promises to enhance fingerprint detection. Using proprietary chemical processes the new technology, developed in association with Loughborough University in central England and the Home Office (the UK’s interior ministry), the innovation offers a means by which fingerprints can be detected on surfaces where such detection was previously impossible, including surfaces which have been washed or wiped down, or treated with acetone.

The development of these new techniques were reportedly the result of an accidental discovery during research work being performed by chemists at the university. This technology has now been licenced to Foster and Freeman which will work on bringing it to market with the company planning to offer the technology to its existing customer base during the first six months of 2018, according to Ploughshares Innovations’ representatives speaking to MONS at the exhibition.

The technology offers clear potential in terms of law enforcement and in the opening of so-called ‘cold cases’ where previous criminal investigations may have been halted because of a lack of evidence with the potential to discover fingerprints which might have been previously undetectable on murder weapons, for example.

Tom Withington