The biometrics of inanimate objects has arrived in the form of a technology brought to the market by Ingenia Technology. The know-how was developed by Russell Cowburn, professor of nanotechnology in the Department of Physics, at Imperial College London, and CTO of Ingenia Technology.
"This is not a new version of some existing technology, this is a completely new technology, a whole new science," said Mark McGlade, the company's director for business development, when launching the security tool in SA yesterday with local partner, Authentech.
McGlade says laser surface authentication (LSA) will prove valuable in combating illegal migration and counterfeiting through its ability to authenticate passports, ID cards and consignments, such as cigarettes and pharmaceuticals.
LSA recognises the inherent nano-level "fingerprint" generated by physical randomness on the surface of most inanimate objects, particularly materials such as paper, plastic, metal and ceramics. Its accuracy is often greater than that of DNA with a reliability of one in one million trillion.
This "fingerprint" is impossible to replicate reliably, and can be easily read using a low-cost portable laser scanner - of the type found in a CD-player. As well as the security implications, the technology can be applied to commercial applications, particularly packaging, McGlade says.
He explains that inspection agencies and customs controls can use LSA to confirm the identity of imported goods and prevent counterfeiting. This could potentially save millions through the avoidance of fraud and reduce the flow of funds to terrorist groups and organised crime. The nearest comparisons to LSA are bar codes, holograms and watermarks. However, these products are overt and liable to abuse, whereas LSA is covert (invisible to the naked eye).
"Our findings open the way to a new and much simpler approach to authentication and tracking," said Cowburn at the launch of LSA in August last year. "This is a system so secure that not even the inventors would be able to crack it since there is no known manufacturing process for copying surface imperfections at the necessary level of precision."
The LSA system can authenticate or reject the item with near certainty, even after the area "fingerprinted" has been subjected to rough handling, water immersion, scorching, scrubbing with an abrasive cleaning pad and being scribbled on with thick black marker.
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