You guys who live in free states where fingerprints are required for CCW or for full-auto, what happens to your fingerprints after they are checked either at the state or federal level?  Are they destroyed afterwards or kept on file forever somewhere.  I wonder if these can be used legally by the criminal justice system against you if your prints are found at a crime scene?

In VA you have a choice of either having them destroyed or returned to you. According to the LEO who fingerprinted me, they cannot legally keep them on file.

You had better assume that if you were EVER fingerprinted for anything, even as a kid in school for whatever, that they are in some government database--FOREVER.

What's the rule in Arizona ??
I'm going to get mine and thats a good question.  If they take them to run a check, then you should get them back when you're cleared.

I am pretty sure that ours go to the state level, where they are kept on file forever.

The dozens of fingerprint cards I did from the military went to federal level files for military rcords or security clearances, and are cross-linked with the FBI's database. The state level cards I did for my Peace Officer license and commissioning as a Peace Officer also go to the state level and are on file and are cross-linked witht he same databases as the criminal ones.

Anyone being jailed for an offense with a possible punishment of jail time (and not just fine-only offense like Public Intoxication) is supposed to have a print card taken and the card is maintained at the state level and linked with criminal history records. Crimanl History records usually contain a Fingerprint Classification, a series of codes that tell a latent examiner what the characteristics of a fingerprint are without actually having a comparison print.

Our CCW finger prints are done on that computer scanner machine that is most likely tied into a fed system somewhere....