Editor's Note: This is the final article in a series of three on the fingerprint analysis and forensic anthropology work done by the Santa Cruz Sheriff's Department. Click here to meet analyst Lauren Zephro, and click here to learn about cases she has helped to crack.

Even if you leave your driver's license at home, your identity is written all over you, and it no longer takes actually being physically taken to jail for law enforcement to know exactly who you are.

Since fall, 2010, the Santa Cruz Sheriff's Department as well as municipal police departments in the county have been using mobile identification devices, which are handheld mini-machines that take a fingerprint and facial photo on site, cross-reference it with the county database, and return any available results. 

Officers use the devices in the field to try to determine the identity of anyone whose ID is either questionable or unavailable. 

Each device is hooked into the county's Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS), which includes the fingerprints and palm prints generated from all inmates that come through the county jail. When an officer scans a fingerprint, the device looks for matches in the AFIS. Of course, anyone who has not been fingerprinted in Santa Cruz County, will not appear in the system.

There are 14 mobile ID devices split among the county agencies. According to latent fingerprint analyst Lauren Zephro, the sheriff's department has four and the rest are divided among local police departments. 

The AFIS system as well as the purchase of some of the devices if funded by the Remote Access Network Trust, which is gathered from DMV resitration fees, Zephro said. 

"Each county has this pool of money that has to be spent on fingerprint identification," she said. "That's how this program was funded and how the AFIS was purchased. It's what we use to pay for the mobile identification devices. Santa Cruz generates about $230,000 a year from this trust. It goes to two things: paying my salary and paying for maintenance on the AFIS system."

The future of the mobile ID program is unclear, as technological growth is being countered by economic uncertainty. Although, as Zephro said, "the program has been well-received," and there is tremendous room for expansion, the next step relies on money. 

"It's not a one-time cost," she said. "There's the equipment cost, then there's annual maintenance. There's also Verizon. These have to communicate with our servers and they use cell phone technology, so that comes with a cost."

Enhancing the program relies on the local AFIS being able to communicate with the AFIS in other counties, or with that of the state. Should that become possible, a scanned fingerprint in the field suddenly becomes prey to a much bigger pool of possible matches. 

"When people talk about identification in forensics, they talk about 'the system,'" Zephro said. "There is no 'system.' It's really a bunch of separate systems that may or may not talk to each other."

The project for the next 10 ten years, she said, is to create the necessary marriage between law enforcement, government and the private sector developing the technology so that a true system can indeed exist on a mass scale. 

"It's big money, so the challenge will be to make it all communicate, which means everyone is going to have to talk to each other," she said.

In the meantime, the priority remains maintaining public safety.

"It's difficult because there's no money," Zephro said. "So if it comes between having an officer on the street and having every officer have mobile ID, the important thing is to have a physical body on the street. It's kind of a tough time for this great technology."