Another article about this appeared in USA Today a few days ago.

Printer dots raise privacy concerns

The dots, invisible to the naked eye, can be seen using a blue LED light and are used by authorities such as the Secret Service to investigate counterfeit bills made with laser printers…

Privacy advocates worry that the little-known technology could ensnare political dissidents, whistle-blowers or anyone who prints materials that authorities want to track.

The dots are produced only on laser devices and not ink-jet printers, which are most commonly used at home…

As an investigator, this might present an opportunity if the dot pattern is consistent enough to be matched to a particular printer or printer type without being able to decode the dots. If this were the case, then you might not need the ability to decode the dots in some instances. For example, at a company with many different types of laser printers. The process of elimination might indicate which printer(s) could have created a document.

Outsourcing passports ‘profound liability’

The blank passports travel to Europe where a microchip is inserted in the back cover and then onto Thailand where they are fitted with a radio antenna. The Netherlands company that makes the covers for the passport said in October that China stole the technology for the microchips, the Times said.

Outsourced passports netting govt. profits, risking national security

The Government Printing Office’s decision to export the work has proved lucrative, allowing the agency to book more than $100 million in recent profits by charging the State Department more money for blank passports than it actually costs to make them, according to interviews with federal officials and documents obtained by The Times.

The age of the ubiquitous ballpoint pen began in the 40′s and this has caused some problems for archivists as so many companies strove to create inexpensive ballpoint pens. The problem has become one of education. The pen may write, but the ink may fade over time, or be vulnerable to water and other solvents. UV light and poor quality paper also do a fine job of obliterating cheap ink from poor quality ballpoint pens. The forgers art of cheque-washing in the following examples illustrate what can happen to documents that encounter solvents.

Cheque-washing is the process of taking a cheque that’s already been filled out, removing the pen’s ink, then re-writing in a new dollar amount and recipient. Sean Kane’s project to test pens and solvents is very educational. Another test of 3 solvents on 22 pens indicates that the pigment inks similar as used in the Uniball 207 fared better. Mike Shea did some interesting tests of the ink in the uni-ball 207 and the G-2 and three other inks. The G-2 survived water but not soap and bleach. The Uniball ink survived all the tests.

In Europe, all cheques are printed on CBS1 security paper, which visibly reacts to solvent attack. Choosing the proper paper is half the job of maintaining any document’s integrity. In most places other than North America, cheques are uncommon and very expensive.

If your writings must endure getting wet or survive the ages, then write with the Uniball 207 or a DIN ISO standard 12757-2 archival quality ball point pen. (DIN ISO standard 12757-2 defines the standards of permanence for the colour seen on paper when held against light, for resistance to chemical solutions, and for the writing quality of the refill. Refills which are marked with a DIN symbol or the ISO standard number have high writing quality and the writing is waterproof and forgery-proof.)

If you use a fountain pen, then use Registrar’s Ink that is water proof on paper. I suggest the Lamy or Mont Blanc blue-black or Diamine Registrar’s Ink as reliable choices. These are modern variations of iron gall ink that are safe in a fountain pens. This ink is not proof against solvents like ammonia but it is waterproof. Don’t be concerned with tales about the corrosive nature of iron gall ink destroying everything and anything it touches. This is a modern, mildly acidic ink, used to create official documents normally intended to last over 100 years. (Certain other brands of so-called eternal inks often clog fountain pens and make it useless.)

The other waterproof inks for fountain pens seem to be the Pilot Security Ink and the Sailor Nano Super Black ink. I have yet to try these inks.

This is not uncommon simply because it is so difficult to uncover the truth of someone’s identity and it has been so throughout my thirty years of Canadian experience.

In Canada, registering deaths is a provincial responsibility. The national vital statistics death registration system run by Statistics Canada does not include the deceased’s name or date of birth. There are no public search facilities for determining if the identity that you are presented with is that of a dead person.

In the U.S.A., the Social Security Administration Death Master file includes 98% of deaths of persons who participated in the Social Security program. This is may be searched at several internet sites.

In the UK, Smee & Ford Limited created a database called Mortascreen, which was used to screen direct mail lists for deceased people. This data was augmented and is now used as the foundation for Halo, a database that covers 85% of the deaths occurring annually in the UK. It is updated monthly and includes historical data to make it useful for verifying a person’s identity.

According to the UK’s Fraud Prevention Service, CIFAS, since 2001, impersonation of the dead is Britain’s fastest growing identity theft crime. The latest research suggests the problem has been under-stated by 3.5 times and revised statistics now indicate that 70,000 families experienced the pain of discovering their loved one had been impersonated after their death, to open accounts such as credit cards and loans.

According to the Home Office figures on crime in England and Wales in Jan 2003, “Between April 2000 and March 2001, the passport agency detected 1,484 fraudulent applications of which 301 used the identities of the deceased.”

I suspect that Canada may have a problem with this type of identity theft, but there is no way of knowing the extent of the the problem.