No one disputes that fingerprinting is a valuable and generally reliable police tool, but despite more than a century of use, fingerprinting has never been scientifically validated. This is significant because of the criteria governing the admission of scientific evidence in the US courts. Latent fingerprints, which are collected from crime scenes, have been used as courtroom evidence for decades. ... But there is little certainty that a set of fingerprints can reliably point to the right person, according to the report.