By Regan Foster
Alaska Journal of Commerce

Harry Buccilli likes hands. He likes to gesticulate with them, shake them, and study them. Most of all, he likes to identify them.

As the executive director of Hi-Tech Live Scan Fingerprinting Services, Inc. he offers a helping hand to employers who want to learn more about their potential employees before writing up a contract.

"The chances of you hiring a criminal are pretty likely if you don't check 'em out," he said.

Buccilli's is the only private company in Alaska with the capacity to collect and send the prints electronically. Live scan , as electronic fingerprinting is known, is a process in which fingerprints are rolled over a plate of glass, captured by a digital camera, recorded into a computer's hard drive, and then sent via electronic wire to state or federal agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Backing up a background check

Live scan fingerprinting is common practice for the federal government and corrections facilities, said John Fauve, the owner of Independent Fingerprinting Consulting Inc. in Anchorage. But, he added, it's popularity is growing in the private sector as a means of pre-employment screening.

"They (the authorities) can almost immediately say 'yes this is the person it's supposed to be,'" Fauve said.

Live scan technology can slice the time it takes to run a background check to a fragment of the 30 to 90 days required by more traditional ink-and-card methods, Buccilli said.

"If I sent out your information today and the FBI picks it up, they would be able to pick up your background information and get it back to me within 24 hours, 3 days on the long end," he said.

State law requires that anyone who works in contact with children or senior citizens has a criminal background check. Buccilli noted, however, that private companies are often screening new employees, as well.

Industries likely to seek out a pre-employment screen, Buccilli said, are those that need to be able to trust their employees in delicate or potentially dangerous situations. Among those, he listed: hospitals, security agencies, house cleaners, banks, day care centers, and anyone who is required by law to have the screen.

But, the growing popularity of pre-employment background checks has some civil rights advocates concerned.

Jennifer Rudinger, the executive director of the Alaska American Civil Liberties Union, said new technology increases the capability of government entities to collect and store personal information. She characterized private employers also having that capacity as "just as alarming."

"We're told there's no slippery slope, that we're paranoid," she said. "But, the technology keeps expanding more and more and more.

"The problem is that the constitution only applies to the government (in terms of protecting privacy), so it's not a legal violation," she said.

Fauve said the screens are a form of self-protection, not meant to violate anyone's civil rights. The majority of the public, he added, recognizes that.

"Sometimes, people will talk, but they almost always come back and say 'okay, I know why they're doing it,'" he said. "The only time people complain is when it gets too expensive."

Advancement and enhancement

Despite the growing popularity of live scan technology, Fauve, a latent print examiner for the state until 1993, said he is "still an ink man."

Other new technologies, such as DNA identification and retinal scanning allow for strong forms of identification, according to both Buccilli and Fauve.

DNA tests, Fauve said, provide an almost infallible identification, but they are cost-prohibitive to conduct.

"They're difficult to do but a wonderful tool," he said. "There's a lot of DNA left at a lot of crime scenes."

Buccilli added that retinal scans, often very useful in instances where access to a location is strictly secured, are less applicable in most investigations.

"Nobody's leaving their eyeballs when they leave a crime scene," he said.

Both Buccilli and Fauve said fingerprints are likely to keep their title as the investigative identification of choice. Buccilli, a former police officer and military investigator, added that the responsibility for fighting crime goes beyond the professionals.

"The most important part is keeping everybody safe," he said. "If we're gonna fight crime, we've all got to work together."