Fingerprint background checks are commonly performed for screening criminal history records. Law enforcement agencies in the United States and many parts of the world use fingerprints as the key to link and maintain criminal records.
For example, Federal Bureau of Investigation has more than 70 million criminal records in its Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS). Fingerprint based background checks enable law enforcement agencies to avoid pitfalls of regular background checks performed using demographic details such as name, address, date of birth, social security number, etc.
When it comes to criminal record screening, fingerprint background check is considered being superior to the regular background check due to its immunity against manipulated demographic data. However, both the methods are used widely for performing background checks in different applications.