Time is crucial in criminal investigations! A fast identification of suspects increases the chance of solving a case and helps preventing further crimes. Fingerprints provide extremely strong physical evidence to the investigation authorities and help to identify suspects. Pieces of evidences are usually transported to forensic laboratories, dusted with a brush or prepared with aggressive and toxic chemicals, to make traces visible and capture them by photography. The state-of-the-art solutions are “analogue”. They are slow, expensive, invasive, prone to mistakes, inaccurate, immobile and laborious. Slowness decreases the police’s chances of protecting victims and of solving cases. Slow response times also lead to higher costs and into significant backlogs in laboratories. Current techniques involve applying chemicals on the traces. In about half of cases the chemicals used are toxic and aggressive. Applying chemicals always brings along the risk of contaminating or damaging traces. It therefore requires highly trained and scarce personnel, which adds to the backlog problem experienced. It also leads to a lower-than-necessary quality of the images of the traces. The current process for digitising revealed traces requires involvement by police photo departments.
SCANOVIS is a start-up company, based in Koblenz, Germany. We have developed a patented spectroscopic infrared laser imaging system that can non-invasively map the distribution of many substances on surfaces. In particular we can reveal/visualise latent (not visible to the eye) fingerprints in forensic investigations. Our aim is that SCANOVIS technology becomes the new standard in the identification of latent fingerprints. With the unique, patented laser-based technology and a team with expertise in chemistry, optics, engineering, forensics, marketing, business, government and law, CEO and founder Jürgen Marx has laid the foundation for success.
