n Taipei County has had no fingerprints for at least five generations. Lin Teih-bi, an expert on fingerprint identification and verification, recently paid a visit to the family of Huang Cheng-tien after learning that he had no friction skin ridges on any of his fingertips.
Lin personally gathered samples of fingerprints of Huang, his son, and a 1.5-year-old granddaughter.
There were no lines or any shapes from skin ridges in their prints, Lin and his CIB colleagues found.
Huang, a retired civil defense member aged 57, said once he was required to make "fingerprint cards" when he was drafted into the army as a conscript 37 years ago.
Officers in his military unit were puzzled that he possessed no fingerprints at all.
Huang, who was perplexed too, brought this up to his father back home while on furlough.
His father told Huang that both he and his father had no fingerprints, either.
This meant that five generations in the Huang family have had no fingerprints.
CIB official Lin said this could be one of the rarest cases on record.
Lin then examined Huang's "fingerprint cards" made when he was a young soldier and found no fingerprints at all.
He said it would be extremely difficult to gather evidence if a person without fingerprints decided to commit a crime.
Huang and his son said there are no specially annoying inconveniences when handling daily chores or in the workplace.
He admitted that he can more accurately identify depictions on tiles when playing the ancient Chinese game of mahjong because his fingertips are much more sensitive than other people's.
A main drawback is that he cannot play the table game for too long -- his fingers ache after a couple of hours.
Huang said he and others in his family would not be allowed to take trips to Japan or other nations that require fingerprints upon entry.
But that will not be a major concern because they have no plans to visit these nations in the near future, he said.
However, Huang's daughter, who has no fingerprints either, has to tackle the problem every day for now.
She is currently working at a high-tech company that has replaced the traditional electronic badge with state-of-the-art biometric security machines that require employees to touch the screen with fingertips to verify their identities with a scan.
She said she is the only one in the company who still has to sign her name in a book when entering or leaving the office.
Medical experts noted that lines, ridges and patterns of fingerprints and on toes generally start forming when an embryo enters the 11th week.
But a genetic mutation affecting protein keratin 14 (KRT 14) could be a possible cause for the lack of fingerprints, they said.
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