Scientists with General Electric Co. in Niskayuna, in conjunction with SABIC Innovative Plastics in Selkirk, are developing new ways to create holographic materials that could make drivers licenses, employee badges, passports and other ID badges more secure in the coming years with Secure ID technology.
Secure ID technology uses volume holography to store information with a higher level of security than the traditional holograms used on ID cards, according to a press release from GE, by storing the hologram within the plastic of the card itself, making it almost impossible to alter or change the card.
It’s no longer a sticker on the card but is a part of the card and plastic itself, said Dr. Moitreyee Sinha, manager of he Functional and Optical Materials Lab. `You no longer have to worry about stamp holograms on plastic but it is now a part of the plastic itself.`
`Whether you’re buying something at the store, passing through an airport checkpoint, or presenting proof of health insurance at the doctor’s office, virtually all of our common, everyday transactions are carried out using plastic,` said Dr. Moitreyee Sinha, manager, Functional and Optical Materials Lab, in a press release. `Ensuring the security of our bank cards and different forms of ID is essential in this increasingly digital age. GE-SABIC Innovative Plastics’ Secure ID card technology will provide a true step change in the level of security, making it virtually impossible to steal a person’s identity or tamper with their cards in any way.`
In a press release, Sinha stated that using the entire volume of a plastic material to store holograms gives them a unique appearance, making it nearly impossible to duplicate. Unlike surface holograms on credit cards or other forms of identification, the GE-SABIC Innovative Plastic technology is able to store multiple holograms in a plastic card to allow for a higher level of security and more personalized features. Traditional holograms on the surface of credit, debit, or ID cards can be compromised as they are only stamped on the top of the card, while the new plastic technology allows for the images that compromise the hologram to be put directly into the plastic material, creating the chance to make more customizable features to make identification unique and stronger security.
But that’s not all the new technology can do, according to a press release from GE, since the holographic material that has been developed by the two companies is also injection-molded , it can be shaped for use in other products such as laptops and cell phones to verify that the product you are getting is genuine.
`The market opportunities for GE-SABIC Innovative Plastic’s holographic technology are numerous,` said Vice President of Technology at SABIC Innovative Plastics Tom Stanley in a press release. `Because these special holographic materials can be injection-molded, the potential application of this technology could be expanded well beyond cards. You could use our technology to verify the authenticity of a variety of products, ranging from laptop computers, cell phones and other electronic devices to sunglasses and other consumer goods.`
`We can store 3-D images of a person’s face, record their fingerprints and even create unique animations within our holographic plastic materials,` said Dr. Sinha in the release. `We can also control the visibility of what a person can see on the card. This will enable varying levels of security features that are needed for different applications.`
GE scientists have been working on the new holographic technology for over six years and one of the best achievements in the program was the ability to process holographic materials inside plastics. Both GE and SABIC are exploring potential market opportunities for its holographic materials with card manufacturers according to the press release. Technology and application development teams at both companies are looking at a target date of 2012 for commercialization of this new holographic technology.
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