Privacy fears over anti-forgery printers

INVISIBLE markings, which allow fraud investigators to link documents back to the printer that produced them, are being secretly applied by laser colour printers sold in Britain.

Human rights campaigners have complained that the technology "erodes" the concept of private business, and senior voices in the colour copy industry have already warned about the "big brother" effect on sales.

The technology prints minuscule dots, covering less than one- thousandth of a page, which encode the printer's serial number and manufacturing code. The dots appear hidden within the printed words and margins of a document. Fraud investigators can use the dots to trace the page back to the printer it came from.

The technology was first used to fight document fraud and to identify those who produced counterfeit currency.

David Wilson, who worked in the cross-industry task force which developed the fraud measures in the early 1990s, said they were an attempt to strike a balance between consumer demand and the needs of the intelligence services. He said it was difficult to establish which manufacturers currently use the technology. "They will be extremely reluctant to tell you," he said.

He said there were pressures in the industry and "plans in place" to spread anti-fraud technology. "The yellow dot is a good historical starting point but it has moved on rapidly and now takes new forms. The latest copiers will stop somebody from copying or changing a document that they shouldn't," he said.

Peter Crean, a senior research fellow at Xerox in America, admitted in US reports last week that his company's laser printers and copiers used the markings. "It's a trail back to you, like a license plate," he said. Many other companies had adopted the practice after the technology was developed, Crean added.

He said that the markings are printed by a chip "way in the machine, right near the laser", which applies the dots when the document is a fraction of a second from printing.

However, a spokesman from the human rights organisation Liberty said that the technology was eroding the idea of personal business. He said: "Many of the things we do, and take for granted as personal, are actually known about. The fact that other people can track and trace documents from these printers is something that concerns us greatly."

He added that, "at the very least", there should be an obligation on manufacturers to inform customers about the technology fitted to their purchases.

Nigel Allen, senior product manager at Kyocera, a firm that manufactures colour laser printers and copiers, said his company had already received calls from customers worried that documents produced on their printers could be traced.

He said: "We do not fit them as standard," adding that the customer would have to ask for the device to be fitted. They did, however, use "anti-counterfeiting measures" but nothing that "allows a customer to be tracked".

"As far as we're concerned the customers don't want it. I think the whole big brother aspect of it worries people."

Paul Trotter, news and features editor of PC Plus magazine, said that in the US the device had been suggested as "a way to find the source of fake airline boarding passes, passports and banknotes".

He added that privacy was now a key issue. "Nobody likes to think they're being watched and whenever a story like this emerges, everyone is up in arms."

Trotter also said that a number of technological advances had "wound up" computer users, and that fears over the printer technology were similar to those that "ID cards struck into privacy activists".

"There's no doubt society's increasing use of technology makes surveillance easier but the reality is that it's likely to be only used to track printouts back to the source in extreme cases."

He said suppliers should be more open about the technology and that if every manufacturer was doing it then it was unlikely to hurt sales. "People still have to print," he said.

Alison Bell, spokeswoman for printer manufacturer Oki, said it was important that companies knew who had accessed and printed a document. "Organisations need to ensure document accuracy," she said.

Forgery and document falsification, such as changing the start date or the information on a life policy to attain financial reward, are major concerns in the financial services sector, she added. "Organisations are concerned about information leaks, particularly any relating to the customer." However, she stressed that Oki did not fit the tracking technology to any of the Oki printers as standard.

Copyright 2004 SMG Sunday Newspapers Ltd.
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.