20 years of physical document and product protection using digital methods

The human hand can copy all that the human hand creates", said Baron von Eichtal in 1843 when he was in charge of banknote issuing for the bank of Bavaria. Despite all the advancements in security printing and anti-counterfeiting, these words ring more true than ever. Indeed in the last thirty years, counterfeiters have greatly benefited from the globalisation of supply chains as well as from the digitization of production methods. Yet the development of digital technologies has also opened unprecedented possibilities for addressing the 3000 years old problem of counterfeiting. This presentation will review some of the counterfeit detection techniques developed in the last 20 years, including printed digital watermarks, copy detection patterns and secure QR Codes. These technologies not only open up the possibility for potentially anyone to verify authenticity with their smartphones, but they also enable the digitization of the trillions of physical documents, packaging and products that we produce every year. Real world examples from industrial applications as well as current research topics will be discussed.