Billings Gazette
-- In 1999, the FBI processed 42,203 fingerprint checks per day. That increased to 167,822 fingerprint checks each day for fiscal year 2010.
-- The FBI processed nearly 61.3 million fingerprint checks last year.
-- Criminal background checks of fingerprints take an average of 8 minutes 42 seconds.
-- Non-criminal background checks take an average of 55 minutes, 24 seconds.
Holding her 2 1/2-year-old daughter with one hand, Chelsea Kemp pushes the index finger of her other hand into a scanner and is electronically admitted to the Kids Playland USA Drop-In Childcare Center.
The new drop-in center at 2011 Grand Ave. claims to be the first local daycare center to use fingerprint security to let parents, relatives or trusted friends drop off a child or pick one up.
"I want to know she's being picked up by someone I know," Kemp said.
For years now, anyone wanting to work with children has had to get fingerprinted. Now, the technology is being used for moms and dads. . .
While statistics are scarce about how widespread the demand for fingerprints is, technicians who do the work say their use is expanding.
. . . One of the heaviest users of fingerprints are the 500 undergraduate and graduate education students at Montana State University Billings, who need background checks before they can step into a classroom, even as sophomores. The checks must be upgraded every second year and every five years for teaching certificates.