Track and trace, trace and track, supply chain transparency, traceability… a confusion of terms to describe the use of an encoded unique identifier to determine the source and the pathway of an individual product.

During March and early April, De La Rue ran its inaugural Excise Tax Protection Course. The six-module course, delivered as online seminars, was aimed at government excise managers and professionals and was by invitation only. De La Rue plans for the course to become an annual event.

In last month’s issue of Authentication News®, we looked at the tantalising prospect of combining the analytical capability and connectivity of a smartphone with the authenticating power of a hologram, touching on how reliance on end-user knowledge of hologram features could be alleviated by the use of smartphones to verify the holograms.

Smart packaging is an area that is pertinent to the interests of our community. It has links to track and trace, product labelling and interaction with the brand through technology. The aim of this article is to take a wider look at trends in smart packaging and consider some of the potential implications for tax stamps and track and trace solutions.

The Gaelic word ‘whisky’ can roughly be translated into English as ‘water’ and so it comes as no surprise that sales of the golden liquid are worth roughly £5 billion annually to Scotland’s economy. As with many premium products, whisky is a favourite target for counterfeiters, which not only takes income away from the legitimate brand owner but deprives revenue authorities of much needed taxes.

Product authentication and consumer engagement solutions provider YPB Group (which is listed on the Australian Securities Exchange) has signed a master service agreement (MSA) with a new channel partner, Specific Products, in Thailand, in order to access the high-volume tobacco and tax stamp industries in that country, according to reports in various financial media.

The term ‘biometrics’ is commonly used to describe technologies that employ human features that are unique to individuals – such as fingerprints or retinal eye patterns – as a way to identify those individuals. But the term is also employed, within the authentication industry, to describe technologies which use the intrinsic microscopic or molecular properties unique to items such as tax stamps to identify and thereby authenticate those items. Hence the term ‘document biometrics’, or ‘fingerprinting’.