When it comes to sensitive, confidential, or otherwise valuable printed material, your best defense is a good offense. The proactive protection of documents and other printed materials not only undermines the dangers of identity theft and corporate espionage, but can help ensure the integrity of trademarks and intellectual property, as well as play a significant role in corporate and judicial proceedings.
In order to comprehensively protect printed material, companies must take a layered approach to security. The fundamental attributes that must be addressed include:
Visual Deterrence
Similar to currency, important documents must be protected “at first glance.” Watermarks, crosshatching and embedded images may deter lower-level counterfeiters that do not have the resources to replicate the sophistication of these techniques. Even more useful, however, are solutions that hide critical information within patterns or image fields that cannot be replicated. Visual deterrence of this order can stop criminal activity before it begins.
Covert Authentication
When sensitive data is printed, it automatically becomes more vulnerable to the prying eyes of anybody who comes into contact with it. Such data can and should be encrypted as it is in the electronic domain. By hiding the information within specific fields that require additional tools to interpret, the information can be “password” protected to the extent that only those with the authentication key can interpret and use the data. Thus, the documents become useless to all but its rightful owners.
Inter-modal Translation
Documents that are protected within the confines of the computer do not, generally, retain that security when printed. There are ways, however, to protect this translation and every effort should be made to pursue such a solution. By encrypting information at the point of print, the physical document no longer poses as much of a threat of exploitation. Using certain anti-scan technologies, the translation of the document back into electronic form is futile, protecting it from further electronic modification or tampering.
Digital Rights Management
Documents can be further protected through solutions that provide permission-based access to, and printing of, sensitive documents. Combined with authentication and copy protection features in such documents, this provides an added layer of protection against fraudulent use or alteration of the confidential information contained within.