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The foundation of any trusted system is actually the document. Whether it’s a birth certificate, degree, business agreement, or application form, what is special about each of them is that the authenticity is taken for granted. If that illusion is shattered, you’re in trouble. Security watermark paper is perhaps the simplest form of defense between real and fake and the single most important aspect. Anyone producing official documents needs to know the value of real watermark security.
The Permanent Nature of Embedded Watermarks
A real watermark is not printed on paper. It's formed within the paper during the manufacturing process itself by altering the thickness of the paper. Thinner fibers allow more light through the paper, while thicker fibers block light, thus creating an image that is only visible when held up to a light source. Since watermarks are actually part of the paper's structure, they cannot be peeled, erased, or scratched off.
Yiko uses state-of-the-art paper manufacturing systems to embed custom designed patterns into the document paper itself. Your school's logo or crest, or your agency's official seal or seal text can be woven directly into the very fabric of the paper you print your important documents on. While printing will wear off over the years, the watermark itself will remain with the paper for decades, a fact that is invaluable for certificates and diplomas, and impossible for a printer to replicate on plain paper.
Defeating Digital Scanning and Printing
The modern forger's tools are the high-powered scanner and the sophisticated printer. He takes a genuine document, scans it and uses digital editing software to alter the contents. After he's finished, he prints it out on plain paper. Generic security features such as colored borders or imprinted seals can be easily duplicated with this method, but not the watermark.
When a forger attempts to scan a Yiko security paper document, no watermark appears on the image file. That's because scanners only see the reflected light off the surface of the paper and do not detect the density of the fibers within the paper. A printed fake simply will not have any watermark image at all. When an official compares the counterfeit document against a light source, they will immediately see the absence of a watermark. The beauty of this defense is that it doesn't require any training or special equipment, yet can foil most digital counterfeiting scams immediately. Letterhead, institutional certificates, and other documents are fully protected with our products.
Custom Designs That Cannot Be Sourced Elsewhere
Buying generic watermark paper from commodity paper suppliers is a poor defense against fraud. A forger could purchase the same batch of plain paper you use, print a fake certificate on it, and try to pass it off as real. Unique, customized watermarks actually prevent this vulnerability, each design can only exist within documents originating from a single entity.
We can create custom watermark patterns for your specific organization. A university can ask us to print its official seal and founding year on all its diploma certificates, or an agency of the federal government can have us incorporate its department name and nation's crest within all of its documents. We can design proprietary corporate patterns for a business that it only permits employees to know about. No one can purchase security watermark paper with a custom watermark from any other supplier than you. When a criminal seeks to obtain blank watermark paper to counterfeit your documents, they won't be able to find any paper with the appropriate mark on it. This custom feature transforms a general defensive measure into a strong form of brand protection.
Layered Security for Maximum Protection
One single anti-counterfeiting technology may not defeat a professional criminal, but layering multiple security features will most likely do the trick.
Yiko produces security document paper with watermark, UV, and security thread options. A certificate of authenticity can incorporate both a watermark with fluorescence and security threads visible only under blacklight. We can produce security labels with hologram transfers, or tamper-evident construction that makes it clear if a label has been tampered with. We offer laser encoding for microscopic text as well as RFID for the highest value documents, but even our least secure document stock is better protected than a non-watermarked product. We can produce 200,000 pieces a day and over 80 million per year. Every product from security letterhead, to institutional certificates will have equal and perfect security features.
Summary
Security watermark paper is not an option when you need to produce secure official documents. It's a time tested staple that offers an intrinsic level of security unparalleled by other printing technologies. Embed your unique, permanent pattern directly into paper fibers that is invisible to copy machines, need no equipment for its authenticity to be confirmed, and that will last for decades. When coupled with other security options such as visible in the dark (UV Fluorescence), the use of holographic stickers or labels, and tamper-proof packaging, watermarked papers represent a viable way of protecting your certificates, diplomas, company letterheads and basically any type of official document. With the technology available now for producing high speed, high volume documents it is really an impossible to beat choice.
