New tech embeds mass customised hidden data in credit cards and plastics during manufacture

Bank card and other plastic product manufacturers will have access to a powerful new technology that will help the fight against counterfeiting of their products and which can provide an additional security feature for credit cards, thanks to new technology devised by researchers at WMG at the University of Warwick.

The technology will allow manufacturers to rapidly embed individual, unique and hidden individual pieces of data in each item made in large production runs of plastic products or credit cards as they are being created by injection moulding.

The researchers, led by WMG Professor Gordon Smith at the University of Warwick have just applied for patents to protect the new technology which uses the influence of a particular external force that exploits the polarity of particles and fluids, to very selectively influence those particles or a polymer fluid as a product is formed by injection moulding.

Professor Smith said: "We are delighted that we have been able to demonstrate that the technology can embed unique pieces of data in each individual product across a live injection moulding production run. The data can either be made visible to the naked eye or hidden so that it can be read by a low cost 'black box' scanner."

"We know this will be of great interest to range of manufacturers seeking to combat counterfeiting in injection moulded products or add security features to credit cards and we will now seek to work with such an interested company to refine the technology and scale it up from our own test runs to full blown industrial production."