Recommendation FP24: Recommendation 24
From The Fingerprint Inquiry Report, published 14 December 2011.
Recommendation
As thorough analysis is an important safeguard against reverse reasoning, before comparison commences the whole mark should be analysed. The approach whereby only a target area is analysed for all levels of detail should be discontinued.
Government response
No government response to this recommendation is on the record yet.
Blanket government agreement does not establish acceptance or delivery by each addressee. Some response passages cover groups of recommendations.
Scope of the government response
The Scottish Government's news release of 14 December 2011, the day the report was published, is its only published statement on the recommendations. Its one sentence about them is given for all of them together and states no position. The Scottish Police Services Authority's release of the same day accepts "all of the recommendations made of it by the Inquiry" without listing them; the site records that on the recommendations addressed to its forensic service. The Authority no longer exists, and the site files its words under the Scottish Police Authority, which took over its forensic services in 2013.
Delivery
No statement on delivery from the addressee has been found in the sources searched (last checked 18 June 2026). This is separate from the response above.