This paper addresses the problem of evaluating the ldquooperational qualityrdquo of fingerprint scanners, that is, the ability of acquiring images that maximize the accuracy of automated fingerprint recognition. The quality parameters commonly used to quantify the fidelity of a scanner in sensing the input pattern have been analyzed and a large experimentation has been carried out to understand their effects on fingerprint recognition accuracy. The experimental results show that some parameters have a strong impact, while others appear to be less relevant.