A novel technique for protecting identification documents (ID) against forgery and tampering is described. A security seal is printed beside the photograph on the face of the ID card. The security seal has the dimensions of a postage stamp and contains encrypted information derived from the photograph as well as alphanumeric information normally found on an ID card. It is used to verify the legitimacy of the ID card. The verification station consists of a scanner interfaced to a personal computer. During the verification process, the card is placed on the scanner, which transfers a digital representation of the card image to the computer. The information within the security seal is extracted and decoded using the public portion of the asymmetrical key and is then compared with the information derived from the face of the card including the photograph. A forgery is declared if the comparison fails. A fully functional prototype has been built and evaluated for variation of the hardware.
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