Fraud prevention
All is not doom and gloom
the same criminal methodology described on previous pages can be used to produce designs of such complexity that they would be extremely difficult to counterfeit or tamper with.
Certain features such as holographic foil though effective are costly and prone to production problems. So it is prudent to set aside costly design features for state security protection and valuable
fiscal documents.

For advice, assistance and estimates for producing security design documents e-mail

Gerard J Watt FCSD
Design Consultant

Click images below to go to
Case Study 1 or Home Page


Copyright © 2000

 

Tampering and forgery
A major area of concern is fraudulent alteration of personalisation details such as names, amount boxes, signatures and photographs.

Visual tamper evident alert
Can comprise of a latent image message or symbol (see alongside) which appears when a security document is fraudulently colour copied or scanned -- provides a very useful validation check. They are difficult to print and require strict quality control, special security inks/paper and meticulous press work. This of course makes them extremely difficult to forge. Cheques and security documents are generally printed on UV dull watermarked bank papers in combination with covert images which only show up under ultra violet light. Special security inks are used which run or stain when attacked by chemicals or aqueous solvents.



Graphic Safeguard Systems studio security validation equipment

 

Case study 2
Driving Licencing Agency heavy goods vehicle tax disc prototype design

The above example was originally blocked in metallic silver (shown in grey) and overprinted in green lithographic ink. When colour copied the silver prints almost black, the diffraction image on the surface distorts and two latent image (?) question marks show up!

Roll the mouse over the above image to display the colour copier print below.

For a high quality alternative version of the above click this link CaseStudy_2.pdf If you need a copy of Adobe Acrobat Reader to view the file then click the Adobe logo below for a free download of the latest version.