Harold Finch is a fictional character from the CBS crime drama television series Person of Interest. He is played by Michael Emerson, and in scenes from his past by Parker Brightman (child) and Chris Bert (teenager). Finch is a reclusive private billionaire software engineer who developed a machine that can isolate the Social Security numbers of people with either premeditated homicidal intent or who will be homicide victims, based on its analysis of surveillance data. He recruits John Reese, a former Green Beret and CIA operative, to help him prevent crimes related to the 'people of interest' that the Machine identifies. He is also known by a series of aliases, many using various bird names as a surname. A quirky and mysterious character, Finch tends to keep his personal life a secret as he rebuffs Reese's numerous attempts to learn more about him.

Background :
Born in Lassiter, Iowa, Finch's real surname is unknown, though his first name has been confirmed to be Harold. A child prodigy, he displayed early skills in the fields of mechanical engineering and computer science. With his father suffering early onset dementia, the teenaged Finch grew increasingly interested in artificial intelligence and human-computer interaction. Needing more memory for the machine he was trying to build, Finch hacked into the early military Internet, ARPANET, resulting in his becoming the subject of federal investigation and obliging him to begin living under a false identity. His father had taught him bird names, which might explain his preference for incorporating these into his aliases.

As 'Harold Wren', Finch entered MIT, where he and classmate Nathan Ingram co-founded the computer company 'IFT' (perhaps Ingram Finch Technologies). Ingram was the public face of the hugely successful business while Harold necessarily remained unseen, accumulating vast wealth without having a public profile. It is made clear in the early seasons that Finch's personal fortune runs into billions of dollars.

After the September 11 attacks, Ingram and Finch began working to create an artificially intelligent machine that could predict terrorist attacks through processing government feeds from emails, phone calls, and surveillance cameras. The machine also generated a list of predicted murders and violent crimes "non-relevant to national security". It was determined that this non-relevant list should have to be ignored, since passing the information to law enforcement agencies could reveal the existence and extent of constitutionally proscribed government surveillance. For this reason, and rationalizing it as done for the greater good, Finch programmed the machine to delete the non-relevant list every day at midnight. Ingram and Finch clashed when Finch discovered that Ingram had created a backdoor into the machine before handing it over and was trying to warn and even save people on the "irrelevant list". Finch shut down the backdoor.

Nathan's moral qualms led him to contact a journalist with the intention of exposing the surveillance program. Anxious to stop him, Finch arrived at the meeting place only in time to see Ingram murdered in a seeming terrorist bombing that as well claimed dozens of innocent lives. Badly injured himself, Finch was taken to the temporary triage. Suspecting (rightly) that the attack was a government sponsored attempt to kill Ingram, and understanding for the first time the lengths to which elements of the government would go to maintain the machine as secret, Finch allowed his fiancée Grace Hendricks to believe he was killed in the bombing. At the secret library location where Ingram had created his backdoor to the machine, Finch reactivated the backdoor and began his own mission to save the non-relevant numbers.

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