2007-12-07.00:00:00.how-to-remove-your-fingerprints

DISCLAIMER OF ALL RESPONSIBILITY IF YOU DO THIS AND IT SUCKS

I am not a medical professional of any kind. This is not medical advice. The sum total of medical advice I received before doing this was to to ask a bunch of vets about it while we were all pissed. They thought it was really stupid. Please don't sue me if you die.

As you may have read in various places, Japan has recently instituted a policy of fingerprinting all non Japanese (with a few exceptions) when they enter the country. Having a healthy disregard for authority figures, and some serious doubts about the safety of my biometric data, not to mention a dislike for being treated like a criminal; I decided to remove my fingerprints.
I did some basic research on the internet to try to find the best method to either remove or alter fingerprints. What I found was quite disappointing. Stories around plastic surgeons removing fingerprints and replacing them with skin from the soles of the feet, a story about a refugee who claimed to have burnt them off using oil and a frying pan, and the claim (on slashdot of course) that the best way was to slice into the skin of the fingertips and embed Drano crystals under the skin (ouch).
So I decided to act as guinea pig; to try as many different methods as I thought might reasonably work (max ten) and wouldn't permanently maim me. I then prepared a lightning talk on the what succeeded and failed - the slides can be found here.

  • Tissue glue (cyanoacrylate) - was successful in disguising fingerprints, however it was quite obvious, and peeled off after about a day, or even sooner with any wear.
  • Abrasion - using a callus file or pumice stone was effective, but required abrading the skin completely off, down to the flesh. The new skin that forms immediately after has no fingerprint on it (I heal very quickly). As well, the wound gave a much better surface for the adhesion of the tissue glue, plus an excuse to use it.
  • Abrasion - using a dremel buffing wheel and toothpaste as an abrasive. Didn't work in any reasonable period of time. The file was much quicker and surprisingly less painfull.
  • Acid dip - Compound W (a wart remover containing salicylic acid and lactic acid) was ineffective even after 5 applications. It did however work after abrading the skin off with the file. Likely the problem is that it can only remove one layer of skin at a time, and it simply takes too long to do anything useful unless you hurry the process by filing.
  • Burning - using a frying pan, with and without oil. Totally ineffective, and really really really hurt. Possibly the problem was that the frying pan was not hot enough (the oil was smoking, but it was not red hot). Psyching up to put my fingers on the frying pan was very difficult, as it seems to be a solidly ingrained fear.
  • Freezing - using compressed propane and alcohol wart remover. Worked, but took several days to be apparent. Seems somewhat dangerous due to the lack of control over the damage to the fingertips.

For overall least amount of pain, most control of damage to fingers, and effectiveness what eventually gave the best results was a combination of abrasion with the file, pouring acid into the wound, bandaging the fingers, and then repeating the process after the remaining skin had been killed. My fingers were healed enough to do finicky tasks (I wear contacts) within a day, no longer itchy or residually painful after about 3 days, and were just starting to gain fingerprints again after about 2 weeks. Tissue glue (sold as liquid bandage) can be used to fill in any holes that take longer than a day to heal.
I successfully made it through Japanese customs, which required several attempts at the machine, a 30 minute wait behind everyone else without fingerprints (mostly little old Chinese ladies) and an attempt at trying each of my other fingers before they gave up, took my photo, stamped my passport and let me in. I suggest, that if you were to try this, that you have a plausible reason for having damaged fingertips.
As a method for stopping either criminals or terrorists, fingerprinting at the border is quite clearly completely ineffective - especially for a country with a notorious problem with missing fingers.