Apu Sarker showed an open hand in a video call from home in Bangladesh. At first it didn’t look strange, but when I looked closer, I saw the flat faces of my fingertips.
He lives with his 22-year-old Apu family in a village north of Rajshahi. He recently worked as a paramedic. His father and father were farmers.
It didn’t matter that Apun had no fingerprints on his father’s days. I don’t think it was a problem, Apu said.
But over the decades, the tiny pits around our fingertips — so-called local dermatoglyphs — have become the world’s most collected biometric data. We use them for everything from voting to passing through airports and unlocking our smartphones.
In 2008, as a child of Apu, Bangladesh submitted a national identity card to all adults, and the database required fingerprints. Confused officials did not know how to issue the card to Apun’s father, Amal Sarker. Eventually, he received a postcard entitled “STAFF CONVERSATION.”
In 2010, a fingerprint was required for a passport and driver’s license. After several attempts, Amal was able to obtain a passport by submitting a certificate from the Medical Council. He never used it because he was afraid of possible problems at the airport. Although the motorcycle is needed for agriculture, it has never been licensed. (I paid, I passed the exam, but they didn’t give me a license because I couldn’t give them a fingerprint,) he said.
The operation involves obtaining a license fee, but does not always help when it is suspended – it is fined twice. He explained the two situations to the bewildered officers and raised his soft fingers to see. But he did not give up.
“It’s always a shame for me,” Amal said.
In 2016, the government demanded that fingerprints be compared to a national database to purchase a SIM card for a mobile phone.
( When I followed the wire, they looked confused, and every time I put my finger on the sensor, the software froze,) Apu said with a smile. The purchase of Apu was denied, and all members of his male family now use SIM cards issued on behalf of his mother.
A rare condition that affects the Sarer family is called adermatoglyphia. For the first time in 2007, Swiss dermatologist Peter Itin became widely known when he contacted a woman in a country who had difficulty entering the United States in the late 1920s. The face in the passport matched the photo, but customs officers were unable to register the fingerprints. Because he was not.
After the test, Professor Itin found that the woman and eight members of her family had the same condition – a flat toe and a small number of sweat glands in her hands.
“Some cases are very rare and several families have not been documented,” Professor Itin told the BBC.
In 2011, the group focused on SMARCAD1, a gene that has changed in nine family members, and identified the cause of a rare disease. At that time nothing was known about the gene. Obviously, the mutation does not cause health problems other than affecting the hands.
Professor Spritcher said the mutation he was looking for in those years affected a gene “he knows nothing about,” so it will take years to find it. In addition, the mutation affected a specific part of the gene, “apparently, a gene that does not work has no function.”
After being diagnosed, the disease became known as adermatoglyphia, but Professor Itin called it “immigration delay disease” after his first patient tried to enter the United States and his name was closed.
Delayed immigration can affect family offspring. Gopesh, Apu Sarker’s uncle, who lives in Dinajpur, about 350 km from Dhaka, said he had to wait two years to get a passport.
Gopesh: ( I’ve had to travel to Dhaka four or five times last two years.)
When the office began using the fingerprint visitation system, Gopesh had to allow senior executives to use the old system – he signed a visitation document every day.
A Bangladeshi dermatologist diagnosed the family with congenital palmar keratoderma, and Professor Itin believes the symptoms reported by Sarkers have become a secondary form of dermatitis, a disease that can cause dry skin and limbs.
Additional tests are needed to confirm the presence of some form of adermatoglyphia in the family. Professor Stretcher’s team said they would be “happy” to help the family with genetic testing. The results of these tests can certainly lead to the Sarkars, but they did not give up their struggle to travel the world without fingerprints.
For the victim Sarker, society seems to be becoming more difficult, rather than adapting to their situation. Amal Sarker has lived most of her life without problems, but she says she is sad for her children.
( It’s not in my hands, it’s a legacy.( But it’s very difficult for me and our sons to face different problems.)
Amal and Apu recently received a new national identity card issued by the Government of Bangladesh following a medical certificate. The map also uses other biometric information – retina scanner and face recognition.
However, they still cannot buy a SIM card or get a driver’s license, and obtaining a passport is a very long and difficult task.
I was reluctant to explain the situation over and over again. I asked many people for advice, but none of them could give an unambiguous answer, Apu said. Someone suggested I go to court. If all the possibilities don’t work, maybe I should have done it.