The recovery of latent text from thermal paper using a simple iodine treatment procedure

Faded, or actively removed text on thermally printed paper samples may be enhanced and retrieved through the use of a simple iodine fuming procedure. The recovery of printed documentation evidence in this fashion is neither affected by prior fingerprint enhancement techniques (such as ninhydrin or DFO), nor by sample age. This method allows, for the first time, evidence to be obtained from completely faded thermal paper samples (receipts, for example) as well as allowing deliberately removed printed text (a consequence of solvent washing pre-treatment in latent fingerprint enhancement procedures) to be recovered.