Making the Paper document more secure through UV fluorescence
As we know, the paper document is here to stay. Does it mean there is no more innovation in it ? On the contrary, it is still evolving to become more intelligent and to acquire capabilities similar to electronic documents.
One of the bigest challenges of the paper document is security – where does your document go ? has it been copied ? Fortunately, researchers are inventing new ways to protect documents. The latest one is a new technique for hiding fluorescent writing using standard printers . Security, until now much more advanced for the electronic document, is making it for paper as well.
Fluorescent writing is not new, but being able to print fluorescent marks on paper using a digital printer, without special ink or paper, is certainly a novelty. Using a very clever way of printing regular toner particles on regular paper, and leveraging the paper’s fluorescent brightening constituents, it becomes possible to hide watermarks that are only readable under UV light. If copied, the document loses its “watermark”.
What could you use it for ? Anywhere your original document has strong value and you want to detect a possible counterfeit. Possibly a customized communication where you need to make sure only the original can be used (coupons, tickets, etc…). Or when paper retains this ”legal” and “proof” dimension, and it is important to use the original and not a copy. Or within any organization where security is key, “extra” hidden information could be added to standard documents (or just as a “seal” of approval and authenticity).
There are probably many other applications – the bottomline is that security for printed documents is coming to the masses at no added cost ! All is needed is the right software and printer . And this watermark can be personalized, since it is digital printing, no need for a long run it can be done for a run length of one.
What is really important to me is that the paper document is slowly catching up on some of its shortcomings with the electronic documents. DRM, copy protection, and other techniques for protecting an electronic document are becoming commonplace. Now some of these techniques are reaching paper, which can be customized with a unique, invisible mark.
[...] security measure. Almost all banknotes have a number of security features, like UV ink (which I blogged on earlier), another one of them being microprinting (printing so small that it is barely visible from the [...]