Document fraud is a global challenge. It can be the driver of many criminal activities, from trafficking and terrorist mobility to smuggling migrants, drugs, or weapons, according to Frontex the European Border and Coast Guard Agency.
That is why it has just launched the Frontex-INTERPOL Electronic Library Document System (FIELDS) that provides information on travel documents, such as their security features. The system displays original and genuine documents and the main forgeries detected on that type of document.
Travel documents are not the only secure items that can be subject to counterfeiting. IDs, certificates, postal ballots, vital records, cheques, and banknotes are all targets.
That is despite the increased use of highly sophisticated security measures that range from holographic images and RFID chips to biometry checks and digital signatures.
But not all law enforcement agencies and private sector companies are equipped with proper electronic devices and software to validate highly secure ID documents.
These technologies can be expensive to implement, read, and check. While supply issues for chips can have an impact on pricing and delivery times.
An affordable and easy to execute option is the recently launched, patented, MagID technology from MagVision. MagID offers a robust and highly customisable solution. It prints unique features in magnetic ink – the same process used for the automatic sorting of bank cheques. Codes can be concealed inside documents, or even over-printed.
The results are easily read by MagVision’s affordable MagScan. The scanner records the magnetic signal from documents containing hard magnetic material. It captures magnetic features in direct contact or through the item and the sampled signal is passed to the PC application for display, analysis, and storage. The resulting signals can be compared against pre-defined limits and previously stored reference signals for comparative results.
There is also MagVisualiser which uses MR sensor technology to obtain a 2D image of the magnetic content of the scanned document and displays a visual representation for further analysis. It comes as a complete stand alone product or as module for integration into third party equipment.
All content is managed by a secure and flexible track and trace platform, which can also use QR codes or RFID tags. In this way the platform can check and report precise data. At the end of life the ink is biodegradable and has virtually no environmental impact. Find out more about MagVision’s products for document security.
Dr Nathalie Muller, Head of Innovation, MagVision