The fingerprint is by far the most durable and flexible technology of identification-control. By indexing an easily recordable and manageable trace of the body to the notion of unique identity, the fingerprint enables any powerful information processing agency (usually a form of state power) to locate, track and verify any individual on the basis of a votive digit. Francis Galton, who pioneered the cult and study of fingerprinting thought of each fingerprint as containing a little world unto itself. These little worlds, labyrinths of whorls and ridges, each contain their inner minotaur, who eats and shits secrets.