Yesterday, I had an experience I hadn’t entirely anticipated having at this stage of my life: I got fingerprinted by the Cambridge Police Department.
The biotech company where I work part-time is planning to start selling products that require them to have a particularly lethal neurotoxin on premises, as well as some other chemicals that can be used in the creation of narcotics. Those substances will be kept in a secure area, but anyone who has to have access to said area has had to go through a security clearance process that includes having fingerprints on file with the FBI’s bioterrorism unit. As one of the IT guys, I will have to have access to the Chamber Of Death, so off I went to the Cambridge PD at lunchtime. There, in a small room, a young woman firmly took each of my fingers, rolled them on an inkpad, and pressed them onto a pair of cards to be sent to the Feds.
I remarked to her that I was surprised that the process had not gone digital. Digital fingerprinting is actually pretty common these days. She informed me that they do, in fact, have a digital system in the booking area where arrestees are processed because it’s faster and easier, which is key when dealing with uncooperative people, but the traditional ink print is still preferred. The room where she fingerprinted me was only just around the corner from the front entrance of what is a fairly large building, so it must be a common enough procedure to do non-arrest-related prints.
As I alluded to above, I also had to have a basic criminal background check, the result of which is that I now have some clearance number from the FBI that I can use if I go to another job that requires such things. I assume the same holds true of the prints — once they’re on file I doubt they ever have to be done again. Now that I’m marked man, though, whatever madcap crime spree I may or may not have been planning will be all that easier to foil. Curses!
