We propose to establish a standardised tool in fingerprint recognition robustness assessment, which is able to simulate a wide class of acquisition conditions, applicable to any given dataset and also of potential interest in forensic analysis. As an example, StirMark image manipulations (as being developed in the context of watermarking robustness assessment) are applied to fingerprint data to generate test data for robustness evaluations, thereby interpreting certain image manipulations as being highly related to realistic fingerprint acquisition conditions. Experimental results involving three types of fingerprint features and matching schemes (i.e. correlation-based, ridge feature-based, and minutiae-based) applied to FVC2004 data underline the need for standardised testing and a corresponding simulation toolset.