Hi everybody! In addition to here, I spend some time lurking on the NFA forums on Reddit. Over there I came across someone that has wrote their own program to create .eft files and posted it for free on Github. I think he's added a way to get it to work in Windows now, but I went the original Linux route. I am by no means a Linux expert, but it was relatively easy to get to work. There are some basic instructions towards the bottom of his main page, but you do need to know a little about Linux to do it. He does also have a discussion forum on his Github page and was very responsive when I had questions or issues.
One issue I came across that wasn't very clear in his instructions is that you have to compile the NIST biometric software separate from his code. He does have a link to it under the Requirements section of his instructions, but it wasn't immediately evident to me that I had to do something separate. While NIST is pretty good at keeping up with other technology standards and recommendations, this biometric code is quite old and took me a while to figure out. I won't go into full details here, but when I was having issues I created a discussion thread on his page and what I had to do is documented there.
Other than a computer, you need to have at least one fingerprint card already filled out. Once you have that, make a high resolution scan of it or, as I did, take a picture with you phone. I'm not sure about Android, but with iPhone you will need to change the aspect ratio of the picture so that it will be in the correct format for the software to read it. Open your camera app, swipe up on the word Photo to get to some settings. From there touch the 4:3 circle to change the aspect ratio to Square (1:1). Make sure the fingerprint card fills the entire screen and then take the picture. All you need to do now is copy the picture to the computer you're running the program from.
If you can't get the program to work, he does offer a service to create it for you for a small fee. However, this would require you to provide him all of your PII (SSN, address, full name, etc) and I strongly advise against sending that to strangers on the internet.
I've been waiting a bit to post this to make sure it actually works first, and can confirm that it does. I just received a paid Form 1 approval this morning for an SBR using the .eft file created with this program.
Without further ado, here's the link:
https://github.com/noahgwood/OpenEFT
One issue I came across that wasn't very clear in his instructions is that you have to compile the NIST biometric software separate from his code. He does have a link to it under the Requirements section of his instructions, but it wasn't immediately evident to me that I had to do something separate. While NIST is pretty good at keeping up with other technology standards and recommendations, this biometric code is quite old and took me a while to figure out. I won't go into full details here, but when I was having issues I created a discussion thread on his page and what I had to do is documented there.
Other than a computer, you need to have at least one fingerprint card already filled out. Once you have that, make a high resolution scan of it or, as I did, take a picture with you phone. I'm not sure about Android, but with iPhone you will need to change the aspect ratio of the picture so that it will be in the correct format for the software to read it. Open your camera app, swipe up on the word Photo to get to some settings. From there touch the 4:3 circle to change the aspect ratio to Square (1:1). Make sure the fingerprint card fills the entire screen and then take the picture. All you need to do now is copy the picture to the computer you're running the program from.
If you can't get the program to work, he does offer a service to create it for you for a small fee. However, this would require you to provide him all of your PII (SSN, address, full name, etc) and I strongly advise against sending that to strangers on the internet.
I've been waiting a bit to post this to make sure it actually works first, and can confirm that it does. I just received a paid Form 1 approval this morning for an SBR using the .eft file created with this program.
Without further ado, here's the link:
https://github.com/noahgwood/OpenEFT