The banknotes of earlier generations were protected by two or three security features with which the general public was familiar: watermark, security thread, intaglio printing. The remaining features pleased primarily printers and central banks, with little thought being given to public perception. The philosophy adopted two decades ago was based on a certain measure of discretion. It required patience and perseverance to discover the built-in security features of the banknotes. When colour photocopiers appeared on the scene in the mid- eighties we were compelled to take precautionary measures to protect our banknotes. One such measure consisted of an information campaign to prepare ourselves for this new potential threat. At this point, we actually became fully aware of the complex design of our banknotes and how difficult it is to communicate clearly the difference between a genuine and a counterfeit banknote. This difficult experience has nevertheless been a great benefit. It badgered us continually during the initial phase of designing the banknotes and preparing the information campaign.

The first new design of U.S. currency in almost 70 years was introduced in March 1996 with the Series 1996 $100 note. The new design, which will be carried through to lower denominations, incorporates new overt features for use by the public. With introduction of the new $50 note in late 1997 and production of the $20 note in 1998, evaluation of the new features is in order. Since the $100 note has now been in circulation for well over a year, sufficient data is available to carry out a meaningful analysis. This report summarizes that analysis. For the analysis, two approaches are taken. The first is to characterize and quantify the gamut of counterfeits that have been generated, from copiers and printers to traditional lithographic versions. Overall quality as well as effectiveness of individual features will be rated. Results from the new design will be compared with those from the older designs. The other involves analysis of macroscopic counterfeiting trends as a function of year and series, to probe the impact of changes in the currency, both subtle and obvious. Understanding these trends can aid in the development of effective strategies to minimize counterfeiting over the long run.

The continued development of reprographic technology and computer graphics (notably color laser copiers, scanners and color laser printers) has increased the tools available to both professional and casual counterfeiters. The result is an increase in the counterfeit risk to the U.S. dollar and other currencies. To counter these threats improved methods of currency authentication are needed both for use by the general public and by national currency authorities. The growing number of cash transfer machines has increased the importance of machine readable security features. This paper describes some technology based approaches to currency security based on special materials. It also proposes a metaphor for currency authentication which attempts to provide a framework for unifying approaches based on secure features and those based on codes.

This paper deals with the creative search for security devices that thwart criminals, in particular forgers, that attack banking instruments. Because this activity requires an innovative mind, knowledge of engineering and a sense of pioneering, it is coined 'inventioneering.' Some fully new solutions and practical examples are discussed: carbon-based ink number in cheques, perforated number in cards and cheques, diffractive personalization of OVDs, protecting the toner of laser printers against alteration, and micro laser engraving.

This paper discusses the approaches taken to deter fraud committed against four documents: the machine-readable passport; the machine-readable visa; the Consular Report of Birth Abroad; and the Border Crossing Card. General approaches are discussed first, with an emphasis on the reasons for the document, the conditions of its use and the information systems required for it to function. A cost model of counterfeit deterrence is introduced. Specific approaches to each of the four documents are then discussed, in light of the issuance circumstances and criteria, the intent of the issuing authority, the applicable international standards and the level of protection and fraud resistance appropriate for the document.

If your company manufacturers, supplies, or distributes products of almost any type, style, shape, or for any usage, they may become the objective of fraudulent activities from one or more sources. Therefore, someone at your company should be concerned about how these activities may affect the company's future. This paper/presentation will provide information about where these 'threats' may come from, what products have been compromised in the past, and what steps might be taken to deter these threats. During product security conferences, conversations, and other sources of information, you'll hear about many different types of security features that can be incorporated into monetary and identification documents, packaging, labeling, and other products/systems to help protect against counterfeiting, unauthorized tampering, or to identify 'genuine' products. Many of these features have been around for some time (which means that they may have lost at least some of their effectiveness) while others, or improved versions of some of the more mature features, have been or are being developed. This area is a 'moving target' and re-examination of the threats and counterthreats needs to be an ongoing activity. The 'value' and the capabilities of these features can sometimes be overstated, i.e. that a feature/system can solve all of the security-related problems that you may (or may not) have with your products. A couple of things to always keep in mind is that no feature(s) is universally effective and none of the features, or even combinations of features, is totally 'tamperproof' or counterfeitproof, irrespective of what may be said or claimed. So how do you go about determining if you have a product security problem and what, if any, security features might be used to reduce the threat(s) to your products? This paper will attempt to provide information to help you separate the 'wheat from the chaff' in these considerations. Specifically, information to be discussed in this paper will attempt to assist you and your associates define (1) what products are or may be under threat and how many different ways the product(s) might be compromised, (2) who might attempt to compromise your company's product(s), (3) what product security features may be effective in deterring the perceived threats, (4) how many deterrent features are needed, and should the features be overt, covert, or a combination of the two, (5) how will the candidate features hold up in the 'usage' environment, and (6) who will 'validate' the features and what skill levels, or auxiliary equipment, will be needed? Obviously, the cost effectiveness for adding possible security features to the product(s) needs to be considered, but more than just the cost of the feature, or the value of the product, needs to be factored into these considerations. For example, the effect of any compromise on the company's reputation and legal liabilities. This paper obviously can not provide all of the 'answers' but will attempt to provide you with 'food for thought.'

What determines the quality of security documents and security features? In the case of security features depending on human inspection this quality is not defined by their technical properties only. A security feature has to play its part within a complex communication process. In this communication process, the issuer of the document is the source of a variety of messages, like personalisation data, messages with a marketing purpose, or the genuineness of first line security features. The document is a single communication channel with a limited bandwidth. 'Observation of the document' is the bottleneck here. The inspector of the document is the receiver and evaluator of all messages of which the apparent genuineness of the document is but one. Here security features have to compete for attention with other visual elements, with their own importance to both issuer and inspector. Security documents are subject to the same laws dealing with visual priority, recognition, and eligibility as any other printed item. How well a security feature performs in the symbiosis of messages passing through the communication channel 'document' should be defined as an aspect of their quality, and subsequently this should be taken into consideration in the development of new security features.

A series of counterfeit Dutch, German, English, and U.S. banknotes was examined with respect to the various modi operandi to imitate paper based, printed and post-printed security features. These features provide positive evidence (verifiability) as well as negative evidence (falsifiability). It appears that the positive evidence provided in most cases is insufficiently convincing: banknote inspection mainly rests on negative evidence. The act of falsifying (to prove to be false), however, is an inefficacious procedure. Ergonomic verificatory security features are demanded. This demand is increasingly met by security features based on nano- technology. The potential of nano-security has a twofold base: (1) the unique optical effects displayed allow simple, fast and unambiguous inspection, and (2) the nano-technology they are based on, makes successful counterfeit or simulation extremely improbable.

When the hologram was first introduced as a security device it was accepted as being a virtually un-counterfeitable security feature. In the decade that followed rumors grew up within the security industry that the hologram was actually far less secure than manufacturers had claimed, with some authorities stating that holograms offered no real security value whatsoever. Despite this, the use of holograms and related Diffractive Optically Variable Image Devices (DOVIDs) continues to increase both for product authentication and document security. This paper presents a number of case histories of hologram copying and simulation and attempts to differentiate the facts from the rumors on the subject of hologram counterfeiting.

Visible image watermarking has become an important and widely used technique to identify ownership and protect copyrights to images. A visible image watermark immediately identifies the owner of an image, and if properly constructed, can deter subsequent unscrupulous use of the image. The insertion of a visible watermark should satisfy two conflicting conditions: the intensity of the watermark should be strong enough to be perceptible, yet it should be light enough to be unobtrusive and not mar the beauty of the original image. Typically such an adjustment is made manually, and human intervention is required to set the intensity of the watermark at the right level. This is fine for a few images, but is unsuitable for a large collection of images. Thus, it is desirable to have a technique to automatically adjust the intensity of the watermark based on some underlying property of each image. This will allow a large number of images to be automatically watermarked, this increasing the throughput of the watermarking stage. In this paper we show that the measurement of image texture can be successfully used to automate the adjustment of watermark intensity. A linear regression model is used to predict subjective assessments of correct watermark intensity based on image texture measurements.

Placing either a visible or invisible mark on a document to help establish its ownership is not a new or revolutionary concept. For hundreds of years, owners of important documents or works of art have imprinted identifying marks onto them, not only to help establish their ownership, but also to discourage those who might wish to misappropriate the work. Today, invisible watermarking of digital images is attempted for those same purposes. To be useful, an ownership watermark must robustly survive and be detectable after any manipulation that does not damage a digital image beyond usability. In the extreme, the watermark must survive the printing and rescanning of the image. Additionally, the probability of detecting a watermark in an image that does not have one must be vanishingly small. An embodiment of invisible watermarking claiming to have these properties has been presented previously by the author. This paper reports the results of typical image manipulations and deliberate attacks on robust invisible watermarks of the type reported. Image manipulations include lossy JPEG compression, small angle rotation, linear and nonlinear resizing, cropping, and sharpening. Attacks include the superposition of uncorrelated noise fields, overmarking, and RSS alterations.

Non-Impact printing is now widely used for most computer hard copy output applications. In the area of production of valuable documents such as title deeds, negotiable documents, passports, insurance policies and cover notes amongst others the flexibility of utilising this method of personalisation is often taken for granted. The benefits of economy, flexibility and speed tend to mask the risks associated with creating documents in this manner. Because of the ease with which alteration and replication can occur on high value documents, users have to protect material using costly lamination processes or look for other ways of securing the images created. Methods of digital protection have been developed that enable images to be protected by embedded digital fingerprints that are unique and hidden within the image itself. The applications of such devices are widespread and they can also be used as tools to detect the authenticity of products through covert protection on labels and packaging printed by digital, colour non-impact printers such as Indigo & Xeikon. this paper will review some of the products offered and how they can be applied as practical solutions to the problems faced. Also highlighted will be the expected performance requirements of such systems and how they compare with alternative solutions such as 2D bar codes, image scarring and secondary encoding routines.

To prevent fraud it is critical to distinguish an authentic document from a counterfeit or altered document. Most current technologies rely on difficult-to-print human detectable features which are added to a document to prevent illegal reproduction. Fraud detection is mostly accomplished by human observation and is based upon the examiner's knowledge, experience and time allotted for examination of a document. Another approach to increasing the security of a value document is to add a unique property to each document. Data about that property is then encoded on the document itself and finally secured using a public key based digital signature. In such a scheme, machine readability of authenticity is possible. This paper describes a patent-applied-for methodology using the unique property of magnetic ink printing, magnetic remanence, that provides for full self- authentication when used with a recordable magnetic stripe for storing a digital signature and other document data. Traditionally the authenticity of a document is determined by physical examination for color, background printing, paper texture, printing resolution, and ink characteristics. On an initial level, there may be numerous security features present on a value document but only a few can be detected and evaluated by the untrained individual. Because security features are normally not standardized except on currency, training tellers and cashiers to do extensive security evaluation is not practical, even though these people are often the only people who get a chance to closely examine the document in a payment system which is back-end automated. In the context of this paper, one should be thinking about value documents such as commercial and personal checks although the concepts presented here can easily be applied to travelers cheques, credit cards, event tickets, passports, driver's licenses, motor vehicle titles, and even currency. For a practical self-authentication system, the false alarms should be less than 1% on the first read pass. Causes of false alarms could be the lack of robustness of the taggant discrimination algorithm, excessive document skew as it is being read, or errors in reading the recordable stripe. The false alarm rate is readily tested by reading the magnetic tags and digitally signing documents in one reader and performing authentication in at least two other reading devices. When reading the same check in the same reader where signed, the error metric is typically in the range of 0.0600. When comparing different checks in different readers, the error metric generally reports values in the range of 0.3930. It is clear from tests to date that the taggant patterns are randomly different for checks even when printed serially one after another using the same printing process. Testing results to date on the robustness of the taggant comparison and discrimination algorithms indicate that it is probable that low false alarms and very low false accept rates will be achieved.

In this report the method of the analysis of two similar structures is discussed. The structures to be compared are considered as two dimensional, amplitude only and are composed by identical apertures. The difference between theses structures is connected with spatial position of the one or several apertures. This difference can be found by: (1) comparison of the two secondary Fourier spectra (auto- correlation signals) of corresponding transmittance functions, and (2) comparison of the cross-correlation signal and the first auto-correlation signal. In that case, we can describe directly the second structure. So, the knowledge of the structures is possible even though we do not know apriory the structures. Some experimental and computer simulated results applied to pattern recognition are presented.

The risk run for counterfeiting and diversion is significantly smaller than that for armed robbery, the latter involving getting killed or being jailed. The industry of valuable products, therefore, must authenticate their products using overt, and/or semi-covert, and/or covert technology. As a result counterfeiting and diversion are limited, while sales and revenues are stimulated. Relevant market categories are government, health and safety, non-consumables, and consumables. To make security measures function adequately, manufacturers of valuable goods must be not only be provided with application equipment and know how, but also with the necessary services.

Most of the multimodal authentication schemes currently developed, combine speech and image-based features together and benefit from the high performance offered by the speech modality. Depending on the application, speech data is not always available or cannot be used. This paper takes these cases into account and investigates the best performance that can be achieved by a system based on facial images only, using information taken from both profile and frontal views. Starting from two different profile-related modalities, one based on the profile shape, the other on the grey level distribution along this shape, we will issue a first profile- based expert whose performance is improved compared to each profile modality taken separately. A second expert will use the most invariant part of the frontal view, namely information from a rectangular grey level window centered around the eyes and nose features, in order to issue a frontal-based authentication. Different fusion schemes are studied and the best approach will be applied in order to efficiently combine our two experts. This will result in a robust image-based person authentication scheme that offers a success rate of 96.5% measured on the M2VTS multimodal face database.

For almost 15 years the use of holograms in security printing, and latterly the use of many types of hologram and related DOVID (Diffractive optically variable image device) in security printing and brand authentication, has been the most significant single application of this technology. In the first part of this paper we examine the mutual importance of security DOVIDs to the security print sector and to DOVID producers. We then show how this sector has driven the research and development of new types of DOVID -- it is the application that has funded many companies and stimulated the introduction of many new techniques and processes. We then demonstrate what this level of commitment to DOVIDs by the security print sector means for the future and ask whether there is another 15 years in this field.

We have developed a palette of visual features based on non- standard diffraction structures, where the profile-shape and the profile depth are determining the intended effects. The target is to provide features with increased security inherent to the diffractive structures. Since the exact reconstruction of the profile is the basis of the effects, these features are very resilient against counterfeiting by standard holographic techniques. Three different types of grating structures and their use as security-feature are described.

We demonstrate the use of diffractive surface-relief profiles for the machine verification of official documents. The microstructures are engineered to yield a prescribed intensity distribution of the diffracted light which can be measured to insure unambiguous verification and authentication. We have developed a palette of machine-verifiable features, offering various capacities of information, ranging from a feature which is easily verified through visual inspection using a special aid, to a feature capable of representing hundreds of bits of information in a read-only diffractive optical memory. The proposed features which we will present here are the hidden-information features, the diffractive area code and the diffractive linear code. For each of the three proposed features, we present prototype systems demonstrating the use of machine-verifiable diffractive optical features incorporated into optically variable devices (OVDs) for document security. Specially engineered diffractive structures are used which are extremely resilient against counterfeit, reorigination or imitation. The machine-readable feature is combined with a visual security device, such as the products known under the tradename KINEGRAM^R.

This paper discusses progress toward development of a high- speed holographic printer, the Holocomposer, suitable for producing identification cards containing miniature holographic portraits. It is believed that a holographic portrait of the bearer of a card cannot be altered or counterfeited at a cost low enough to justify the counterfeiter's risk of discovery.

Optically Variable Ink (OVI^TM) chosen for its unique colour shifting properties is applied to the currencies of more than 50 countries. An significant colour difference at viewing angles of 90 degrees and 30 degrees respectively makes colour copying impossible. New manufacturing techniques for the interference pigment (OVP) provide ever better cost/performance ratios. Screen printing presses newly available on the market guarantee production speeds of 8000 sheets/hour or 130 meters/minute in the case of web printing, perfectly in line with the traditional equipment for manufacturing of currency. Specifically developed ink formulations allow UV-curing at high speed or oxidative drying to create highly mechanically and chemically resistant colour shifting prints. The unique colour shifting characteristics together with overprinting in intaglio give design opportunities providing the best protection against colour copying or commercial reprint. Specific designs of OVP together with high security ingredients allow the formulation of machine readable optically variable inks useful for the authentication and sorting of documents.

In diffractive optically variable image devices (DOVIDs) used as anticounterfeiting elements new features appear, which are directly adapted from traditional security paper techniques such as microprints or guilloche. Usually, they are used in combination with standard optically variable diffractive effects. Modern versatile DOVID printers and microlithographic UV and e-beam techniques allow to obtain a wide range of optically variable effects and hidden features. In this paper, we present various possibilities of employing guilloche in security DOVIDs. The first is an animated guilloche widely used in DOVIDs composed of diffraction gratings such as Kinegrams^TM and Kineforms^TM as well as in high resolution dot-matrix elements. The second possibility is the multicolor guilloche, used by means of 2D rainbow holograms. Such an optically variable guilloche is visible in wide range of observation angles, however, it is darker than grating structures. Increased visibility may be achieved using computer generated holograms (CGH) structures what results in widely visible and bright DOVIDs. With CGH structures it is also possible to combine kinematic guilloche with hidden features visible using a special reader and to introduce completely new kinds of effects resulting in a multicolor guilloche with colors changing in cyclic way and others special effects guilloches showing the kinematic effects and/or various color changing effects.

For thousands of years, man has exploited the attraction and radiance of pure gold to adorn articles of great significance. Today, designers decorate packaging with metallic gold foils to maintain the prestige of luxury items such as perfumes, chocolates, wine and whisky, and to add visible appeal and value to wide range of products. However, today's products do not call for the hand beaten gold leaf of the Ancient Egyptians, instead a rapid production technology exists which makes use of accurately coated thin polymer films and vacuum deposited metallic layers. Stamping Foils Technology is highly versatile since several different layers may be combined into one product, each providing a different function. Not only can a foil bring visual appeal to an article, it can provide physical and chemical resistance properties and also protect an article from human forms of interference, such as counterfeiting, copying or tampering. Stamping foils have proved to be a highly effective vehicle for applying optical devices to items requiring this type of protection. Credit cards, bank notes, personal identification documents and more recently high value packaged items such as software and perfumes are protected by optically variable devices applied using stamping foil technology.

A security device on a banknote has to be recognized immediately by the general public and has to enable the general public to establish the genuineness of the banknote. This is the so-called first line of defense. Recently the development of the ability to establish the genuiness has gained momentum and is called 'self authenticating.' Comparing the banknote number with a 'watermark number' can do authenticating. The watermark number is engraved by a laser beam in the paper and is -- as the printed number -- different for each note. Recent progress in the material processing by laser enables the engraving of the individual watermark number for each banknote in line with the production process.

In 1996 Australia became the first country in the world to have an all-polymer currency in general circulation. Australia's first polymer note was a commemorative note that was issued in January 1988 to celebrate the bicentenary of European settlement. That note was the culmination of almost twenty year's collaboration between the Reserve Bank of Australia and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation. This paper traces the development of the Bicentennial Banknote note from its conception at a brain- storming meeting between RBA and CSIRO scientists in 1968 through to its release in 1988.

This paper discusses a new concept in overt security called the self-authenticating banknote. The self-authenticating banknote concept is built around the transparent window feature of the polymer banknote. This feature allows the incorporation of transmission based optical devices on a banknote so that the user, by folding the note over on itself and looking through an optical device which is a part of the note itself, can visually inspect and verify certain security features on the banknote. This paper presents a number of examples of optical devices which are presently being developed for this purpose.

We have used the term 'clone' to refer to those things which are produced by methods such as counterfeiting, alteration, duplication or simulation. To satisfy the requirements of secure and low-cost techniques for preventing card fraud, we have recently developed a clone preventive system called 'FibeCrypt (Fiber Cryptosystem)' which utilizes physical characteristics. Each card has a canonical domain (i.e. a distinctive part), similar to fingerprints as the biometric measurement, made up of magnetic micro-fibers scattered randomly inside. We have applied cryptosystems to the system. FibeCrypt examines and authenticates the unique pattern of the canonical domain using pre-stored reference data and a digital signature. In our paper, the schemes and the features of this system are described in detail. The results of our examinations show the accuracy of authentication of the system. We conclude that this authentication technique which utilizes physical characteristics can be very effective for clone prevention in various fields.

The 'Luminus^R' that you see in the title of this paper is a registered trade mark of a security paper product which has patent protection to date in six countries, including the United States. Further patent applications are in progress in over forty other countries. The essential characteristic of Luminus^R Paper is that it contains a coloured image that is substantially undetectable when viewed in reflected light but becomes apparent when viewed through transmitted light. The stronger the light source, the more pronounced the image becomes. The purpose of this paper is to explain the technical aspects of the product and to explain, in effect, why it is a patentable, completely new technology for protection against counterfeiting. First, it must be explained that the inventors set out to develop a paper that, in conjunction with the surface print on a document, could not be reproduced by the normal means open to a counterfeiter: especially colour photocopying and Offset printing. During the time that Domtar proceeded to bring the concept to the stage of a commercial product, three other advantages became apparent: (1) Durability in use as proven by lab results and a 'live' circulation trial. (2) Design flexibility: giving a third 'side' to the paper that can receive a design. (3) Processing ability in existing equipment including printing presses and cash handling machinery. I am going to concentrate, however, on the anti-counterfeiting aspects of Luminus^R Security Paper as security is the theme of this conference. In this respect, I will cover the following subject areas: (1) Make-up of the product, including production methods; (2) Security elements that can be incorporated to deter counterfeiting; (3) Health and safety aspects; (4) Testing against counterfeiting and simulation; (5) Cost-benefit of the product. I am also going to concentrate on one end-use, bank notes, although Luminus^R paper has been tested through use in other security documents, in particular travel documents such as passports and visas.

Print-on-demand is currently a major trend in the production of paper based documents. This fully digital production philosophy will likely have ramifications also for the secure identification document market. Here, plastic cards increasingly replace traditionally paper based security sensitive documents such as drivers licenses and passports. The information content of plastic cards can be made highly secure by using chip cards. However, printed and other optical security features will continue to play an important role, both for machine readable and visual inspection. Therefore, on-demand high resolution print technologies, laser engraving, luminescent pigments and laminated features such as holograms, kinegrams or phase gratings will have to be considered for the production of secure identification documents. Very important are also basic optical, surface and material durability properties of the laminates as well as the strength and nature of the adhesion between the layers. This presentation will address some of the specific problems encountered when optical security features such as high resolution printing and laser engraving are to be integrated in the on-demand production of secure plastic card identification documents.

This paper introduces a new rotatable glyph shape for trusted printing applications that has excellent image rendering, data storage and counterfeit deterrence properties. Referred to as a serpentine because it tiles into a meandering line screen, it can produce high quality images independent of its ability to embed data. The hafltone cell is constructed with hyperbolic curves to enhance its dynamic range, and generates low distortion because of rotational tone invariance with its neighbors. An extension to the process allows the data to be formatted into human readable text patterns, viewable with a magnifying glass, and therefore not requiring input scanning. The resultant embedded halftone patterns can be recognized as simple numbers (0 - 9) or alphanumerics (a - z). The pattern intensity can be offset from the surrounding image field intensity, producing a watermarking effect. We have been able to embed words such as 'original' or license numbers into the background halftone pattern of images which can be readily observed in the original image, and which conveniently disappear upon copying. We have also embedded data blocks with self-clocking codes and error correction data which are machine-readable. Finally, we have successfully printed full color images with both the embedded data and text, simulating a trusted printing application.

Human inspection of security features is based on a cycle of actions: the development and execution of a strategy, and the observation and evaluation of results. These actions aim at establishing the state of the object: genuine or fake. These actions require knowledge, which is either in the head (memorized) or in the world (provided by the object). It is argued that knowledge in the world is most suitable for adequate inspection of first line security features. In contrast, knowledge in the head cannot be relied on, unless standardization is consistently implemented. From the action cycle five pertinent questions ensue. How easily can the user: (1) determine and understand the function of the device? (2) tell what actions are possible? (3) execute the actions? (4) observe the results? (5) compare the observed results with the expected results? A set of generic design rules is derived, involving the function of the device, the execution of a strategy, and the evaluation of the result. A number of first line security features is evaluated from this human factors point of view. These comprise substrate embedded features (watermark, windowed thread), features added to the ink (iridescent pigment), printed features (intaglio, small lettering, see-throughs, latent images), and post-printed features (iridescent foils). It is concluded that many current security features do not meet basic ergonomic design rules. However, iridescent optically variable devices tend to have a potential to meet these requirements.

The article analyses holograms counterfeiting techniques and presents grounds for the choice of the optimum type of holograms best protected against counterfeiting -- volume holograms. There is a description of these holograms registration process on DuPont OmniDex photopolymer film and the analysis of the perspective of their use during banknotes production.

Counterfeiting and diversion of brand name products is a significant worldwide problem. Loss of revenue to the manufacturers is obviously important, however erosion of consumer confidence, and liability for adverse health effects or performance caused by poor quality product can be of even greater significance. Biocode has developed a novel approach to product marking and identification that utilizes molecular binding pair technologies such as immunoassay. The sensitivity, specificity, and ease of use of immunoassay provides a powerful method for detecting trace levels of intentionally added chemical markers. Using the diversity of the immune response, Biocode has developed a library of binding molecules and highly sensitive immunoassay systems for detection and measurement of a variety of chemical markers. The markers have been selected based on their stability and compatibility within various types of products. For food, beverage, and pharmaceutical applications, common and naturally occurring food ingredients and pharmaceutical excipients provide markers which are safe, readily available, and already approved for use. For other applications such as fuel and lubricant marking. Solubility and chemical stability of the markers are a major consideration. In addition to incorporating markers directly into products, Biocode has also developed invisible inks that can be printed onto the surface of products, packaging, or labels. The trace levels of marker that is printed onto the surface of a product or package can only be revealed by using the complementary binding pair that has been developed by Biocode. This technology provides for simple field tests and very high level of security as it is virtually impossible to copy.

The use of laser technology for application of security features into security documents is introduced and specifically the security features which are applied directly into the security documents itself are covered. This innovative way of working creates effective deterrents to counterfeit and forgery. Laser applied security features become an integral part of the documents and its characteristics are unique and well-distinguishable. Together with the high levels of fineness and accuracy which can be achieved, this makes laser applied security features virtually impossible to reproduce with other means. Furthermore lasers can create first line security features which the public can easily verify with the naked eye. An introduction into laser technology gives better insight into the use of lasers in security documents. The laser offers high flexibility as the security features are created one by one under control of computer programs. As result a laser system can produce unique and personalised security features which can be applied automatically during one of the last production stages of the document. Laser applied security features are at this moment used on banknotes, passports and cheques. Examples of such applications will be shown. Also new types of laser applied security features will be introduced.

Biometric Encryption^TM is an algorithm which has been developed to securely link and retrieve a digital key using the interaction of a biometric image, such as a fingerprint, with a secure block of data, known as a Bioscrypt^TM. The key can be used, for example, as an encryption/decryption key. The Bioscrypt^TM comprises a filter function, which is calculated using an image processing algorithm, and other information which is required to first retrieve, and then verify the validity of, the key. The key is retrieved using information from an output pattern formed via the interaction of the biometric image with the filter function. Therefore, the filter function must be designed so that it produces a consistent output pattern (and thus, key). The filter function must also be designed to be secure (i.e. information about the fingerprint cannot be retrieved from the filter function). The consistency of the output pattern and the security of the filter function are the two topics discussed in this paper.

The optical properties of rare earth (RE) ions and theirs application for identification and protection of documents will be discussed. RE ions doped powders e.g. fluoride crystals, oxychlorides, oxyfluorides can be used for security printing as components of applied printing dyes. In described above compounds, the anti-Stokes emission occurs. It means that the conversion from infrared-to-visible has place. When excited with an IR diode laser with (lambda) equals 980 nm, the emission in visible is observed. The are many advantages of such security mean. The RE dyes can be invisible and the emission is induced by 'invisible' light. In order to evoke the emission, the matching between used chemical compound and laser light is necessary. The up-conversion phenomena are very rare and can be observed only in some special compounds made by specialized laboratories.