ANSI INCITS 378-2004 – Information Technology – Finger Minutiae Format For Data Interchange – Refers to an interoperability standard for fingerprint templates developed by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). The United States government requires all Homeland Security Directive and Personal Identity Verification (PIV) be ANSI 378 compliant.
This Standard specifies a concept and data format for representation of fingerprints using the fundamental notion of minutiae. The data format is generic, in that it may be applied and used in a wide range of application areas where automated fingerprint recognition is involved. No application-specific requirements or features are addressed in this standard. The Standard contains definitions of relevant terms, a description of where minutiae shall be defined, a data format for containing the data, and conformance information. This standard is superseded by INCITS 378-2009.