As current commercial fingerprint recognition systems are only based o n the analysis of ridge patterns and minutiae obtained from 2-D image of a finger surface,artificial fingerprin ts can easily spoof the systems and make they have a big security risk.In this paper,a method is proposed for ident ifying artificial fingerprints by using optical coherence tomography (OCT).Based on the analysis of OCT system th eory and optical properties of the skin,the all-fiber OCT system is used to scan the human finger and the artificial fingerprint dummy which can spoof the fingerprint recognition system.2-D tomography images of the two and 1-D average OCT signals corresponding to the 2-D images are obtained,respectively.3-D OCT image of the artificial fingerprint dummy is given by OCT scanning.It reveals that artificial fingerpri nt dummy can be accurately identified on the basis of the obtained structural information in the depth dire ction and optical properties through the comparative analysis of 2-D images and 1-D OCT signals of the two.The experim ental results indicate that OCT technology not only can be used for identification of artificial fingerprints to effectively enhance the safety performance of the biometric recognition system,but also has the potential for fingerprint identification.