In accordance with an embodiment of the present invention, an efficient and accurate system and method are described for detecting a fingerprint from swipe sensor system. A swipe sensor module is coupled to a microprocessor module. The swipe sensor module collects fingerprint image data as a plurality of frames and passes the frames of data to the microprocessor module. The microprocessor module assembles the frames of data into a complete image of the fingerprint that is cropped and processed to remove noise and artifacts. The cropped image is used to generate a template in a first instance and to compare an extracted portion of the cropped image to existing templates in a second instance.