I addressed this when this study was discussed last week, but it's worth reminding that minutiae comparing is not the only technique used for fingerprint matching. [1]

(possible corporate bias) [1] https://corporate.fingerprints.com/en/newsroom/faq-regarding...

Thanks for the link! Yes there are many ways, I always thought minutiae was most common/simplest. There are some interesting advancements also occuring in the optical tomography. [1]

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7110228/?reload=true