We will never get rid of that small proportion of the population that is determined to ‘get rich quick’ whatever the cost to others or to society as a whole. Most of their efforts are not of special concern to the printing industry, but forging of documents is clearly rooted within our industry and efforts to defeat forgery are within our hands.
Legal, but still driven by the desire of the population to become richer is the growth of lottery tickets. Here, we must ensure that the winning, or otherwise, numbers are not apparent until they are revealed in the approved manner.
Traditionally, security printing would cover items with a clear cash value, such as bank notes, cheques, passports, pension books or other social security documents and airline tickets. Production of these is generally within the hands of a very small number of specialist printers, often government owned or controlled. As a result, the majority of the print industry had little practical involvement with the modern methods used. Counterfeiting has now spread to a wide range of consumer products, particularly those are small, but have high value, such as perfumes, software and CDs.
Consequently, security features are now built into much of their packaging and documentation. Inks and coatings that make their contribution to these security features are now more widely used in the general print industry. The best known are the fugitive inks that are used as background designs for many security documents. These are water based inks that are printed by letterpress or dry offset. If attempts are made to alter the document with water or a range of other common chemicals, the colour bleeds or changes so that it is readily visible.
Bleeding Inks
Fugitive inks are designed to show when attempts are made to alter an otherwise genuine document. Of rapidly growing importance is the need to identify the genuine (as opposed to counterfeit) item. There are different levels of security according to need. For instance, many more security features are built into the Swiss bank notes than the British, where greater emphasis is placed on the cost of security. Most of these, of course, are not ink based.
Whereas fugitive inks change their colour in total, ‘bleeding’ inks retain their original colour, but bleed a different colour when whetted with water or other solvents. When used as an authentication feature, a whetted finger will produce a coloured smudge on the genuine document whereas a forgery will not. Pen reactive inks change colour when in contact with the chemicals in an appropriate pen. Reversible systems start colourless, change colour under the pen and with time, fade back to the colourless state. Irreversible systems change from colourless to black. These inks can be used for authentication of documents as the ability to change is not apparent until the appropriate chemical is introduced.
Colour change can be caused by factors other than chemicals. An ink or coating may look quite unexceptional when printed and viewed in daylight or artificial light. However, when illuminated with UV light, it glows in another colour. We are used to coated paper and white clothing growing blue under such conditions because of the presence of optical brighteners. With these materials, the glow is a different colour and can be modified to meet customer needs. The fluorescence that disappears as soon as the UV light is removed can be supplemented by phosphorescence that will continue to glow for 1-2 hours after removal of the light source. Other chemical markers in the ink can be very much more sophisticated and specifically developed to meet the need of individual customers. They may need instrumental analysis to identify the genuine item from the forgery.
Obliterating silvers
The situation is different with instant-win lottery tickets which depend on obliterating silver inks to hide the ‘winning’ symbols. The ticket is usually a four or five part structure. An opaque baseboard carries the printed design, including symbols, over the image and there may be an overprint to add personalization. The obliterating ink has to be carefully formulated to hide the symbols under all conditions, to remove when required and to be removed cleanly in ‘spills’ and not flake off in fragments that will contaminate clothing etc.
Security and other bespoke papers
Why should bespoke and security grades be linked? The visual techniques employed as security features – watermarking, colored planchettes, silurian fibre and so on – are the stuff bespoke papers are made of and are, therefore, also of interest to designers for such end uses as report and accounts, or in a prestigious promotional brochure.
The term ‘security paper’ means a great deal more than simply cheques, although the manufacture and surface treatment of these papers is both complex and exacting. Security grades are generally more and more in demand as the criminal element recognizes the potential areas of counterfeiting and forgery opportunities. Such end-uses where security of the product is important, extends to theatre and cinema tickets, vouchers, scratch cards and lottery tickets, travel tickets, vehicle registration and other specialized documentation, but also and increasingly, the protection of a brand, for example, drink and perfume.
Security
There are effectively two ways in which the criminal fraternity can benefit from printed matter, either by altering an existing document (forgery) or the printing of a duplicate (counterfeiting). As the criminal methods employed become ever more ingenious, so too must the manufacturers security features. Often the treatments must remain confidential to the manufacturer, but that should not be a problem to the specifier, for example, Curtis Fine Papers employs a specialist team who can advise clients on the type of security feature best employed for their purpose. Curtis offers a selection of security features including chemical sensitisation, both standard and bespoke watermarking, visible and invisible security fibres, security planchettes and fluorescent sparklers.
Watermarking
This technology is used for the purpose of security and as a design feature. Curtis Fine Papers, can supply a whole range of watermark types, both line and shadow watermarks. There are three main types of watermark positioning on business stationery, for example: registered, strip and random. Specimens of the various watermarks and positionings should be available from any reputable manufacturer.