Optical Document Security

Citation

Harwood, C.J. (1998), "Optical Document Security", Kybernetes, Vol. 27 No. 5, pp. 586-588. https://doi.org/10.1108/k.1998.27.5.586.5

This is the second edition of a fascinating book that deserved to be up‐dated from its original 1992 version. The editor is at pains to point out in his preface to this edition that new authors have been invited to contribute and contributors to the first edition have updated or completely revised their chapters to cover the new developments in this rapidly progressing field. It also contains a valuable appendix of “optically variable devices (OVDs)” of some 15 pages of contributor’s actual samples. With the book comes a CD‐ROM with the interactive and well‐illustrated “Aestron Encyclopedia of Printed Security”, The author in the preface of the first edition to this work queried whether “document security is a subject that should be discussed in public?” After some six years since the original text was produced there is no definitive answer but the public are only too aware that the level of fraud and indeed reported and unreported crime appears to be on the increase. The question is now one that has to be addressed to a rapidly changing society whose attitude to the new technologies has changed. This is matched by the new sophistication of those in our society who are bent on fraud and other criminal activities. This book, however, is not about the general picture but rather about the specific inspection of the security features on valuable documents. Both the editor and the contributors appear to believe that “more and continuous education of the public with respect to the inspection of the security features on valuable documents seems to be necessary”.

In the second edition, however, the editor, in Chapter 2, treats the subject of security design in a different way and accepts the critical view of the original chapter by the security designer Steven Tuinstra. The revised version is the better for it. He bows to the views of Donald A. Norman who says that our interaction with products is based on two kinds of knowledge about their function: knowledge in the head and knowledge in the world. Norman argues that the former is not likely to build up very easily and that, in contrast, the product itself should convey the necessary information, i.e. knowledge in the world. The editor seems to take, perhaps justifiably, the view that these attempts to convey “ the necessary information to the head of the user are likely to remain largely in vain”.

There is no doubt whatsoever that this edition is not only comprehensive in its coverage of the subject but also most informative with each aspect dealt with in much detail and with an enlightened discussion included. The problem of continuity is a serious one when each chapter is authored by different contributors. But in this text the editor has achieved it by asking contributors to include an introduction to the specialist topic and to make their contribution as self‐contained as is feasible. It is therefore possible to turn to any chapter and study it without reference to any other, although it is recommended that the first Chapters 1 to 8 are read together to put the whole subject in focus.

Chapters cover forensic aspects of document counterfeit; security design; evaluation of document fraud resistance; introduction to optical document security; security papers and special effects; historical development of security printing; techniques for security printing; digital copying security elements. Chapters 9 to 19 are concerned with special devices including optical variable ones and protection using holograms; microstructures; thin‐film devices; liquid crystal devices; and several more unusual security innovative devices. The chapter on identification cards (18) had a topical appeal and was followed by the editor’s chapter on “An introduction to biometrics”. This chapter is, of course, concerned with a subject which merits a book in its own right so that van Renesse merely whets our appetite for more information and a discourse on some of the currently developing methodology. Updated examples of new products and techniques that involve the biometric techniques are published in this journal. The variety of techniques and the products that result from them make it difficult for any author to include the latest ones in such a rapidly growing area. The reference list provides further reading and the revised chapter did include several 1996‐97 references, but the majority were well before these dates. For example, John Daughman’s reference of 1997 on face recognition was certainly relevant, but his contribution at Cambridge University computing laboratory to “Iris recognition” which has formed the basis for a patent, mainly in the USA and Japan should have been included in more detail (see pages 469‐70), and post 1995 references included in the revised edition.

Keeping up‐to‐date in published form is, however, becoming increasingly difficult, particularly in an area which responds so quickly to innovative technological changes. Hence, I suppose, the attraction, in part at least, is or the Internet publishing of any information that is subject to such rapid movement. The CD‐ROM supplied with the book would, of course, form the basis for any updates ‐ and, indeed revisions so that a third edition could also be so produced.

The Aestron Encyclopedia of Printed Security stands in its own right as a fine information database and with the printed text in its second edition forms a desirable combination for anyone who is seriously interested in these developments or for those who are equally fascinated by the contents because of their continued relevance in an “information society”. Readers of this work may well show that the “two kinds of knowledge” in “the head” and the “world” can, in the former case be assimilated more easily and in the latter case lead to better product information.