Now, existing in this fragmentary print there are only about seven to eight points that can be found, it is so fragmentary. We cannot determine the pattern. Accordingly then, when you compare it, you have to compare it with a person's 10 fingers regardless as to the pattern types. Bearing in mind that the average fingerprint has from 85 to 125 points—identifying characteristics—we have literally made millions of comparisons with only a portion of a finger, and we have failed to identify these 8 points in all types of patterns.
Isn't it sufficient to say then that people simply will not have the same fingerprints? Yet you have authorities, so-called authorities, who say that it is possible to find all 10 prints duplicated in 1 chance out of 1 followed by 60 zeros, if you can figure out what that figure is.
Representative Boggs. Who are these authorities?
Mr. Latona. They are really in my opinion mathematicians who on the basis of the so-called characteristic points have said 5 points times 125 times 125 times 125 to about the 10th power and wind up something like 1 followed by 60 zeros. They are mathematicians but they are not fingerprint people.
Mr. Dulles. What is your card system like? If this is too confidential I don't want to get anything in the record here that is too secret.
We can take it off the record.
Mr. Latona. Nothing is secret about our files.
Mr. Dulles. How many characteristics do you file on a card so that when you find these characteristics you can go to the right cabinet and the right filing drawer and then pull out the right card in time?
Mr. Latona. Literally they can break down into hundreds of thousands of groups.
Representative Boggs. How many do you have on file?