On the ballot: What is AFIS?

Fingerprint identification
Photo courtesy King County

The only item on the April 22, 2025 special election is the renewal of the AFIS program.

Other parts of King county have school levies on this ballot.

But what about AFIS?

The regional AFIS program promotes public safety and contributes to crime reduction by providing fingerprint identification services and technology to criminal justice agencies throughout King County.

AFIS is a searchable database of fingerprint and palm print records.

In King County, the AFIS serves two primary purposes: 

1. To identify crime scene (latent) fingerprints and palm prints that aid in investigations and provide evidence in court. 
2. To quickly identify individuals to prevent wrongful detention, ensure that those using false names are correctly identified prior to their release, and to establish accurate criminal history records. 

Finger and palm prints are entered into the AFIS where they are compared to those of known individuals. The AFIS will provide a list of candidates with characteristics in common to the unknown prints, and an examiner will make the final determination of whether any of the prints match. 

The King County AFIS database currently holds over 3 million finger and palm prints for comparison. The AFIS also stores over 67 thousand unsolved crime scene prints which are compared to all incoming records, alerting examiners whenever a potential cold-case print may have a match.

The AFIS program is funded through a property tax levy with the first levy being approved in 1986. The program serves all 39 cities and unincorporated areas in King County. 

This regional approach of providing enhanced criminal identification services promotes greater public and officer safety through information sharing, at a minimal cost to the individual taxpayer. 

All your questions and more answered here