SF-08
Forensic taggant
A marker carried in the ink that answers one question definitively in a laboratory, and is undetectable everywhere else.
Forensic taggant ×2,000
Specification
- House code
- SF-08
- Method
- Marker compound carried in the ink
- Apparent at
- ×2,000
- Deters
- Disputes about origin, and the passing-off of genuine-looking copies.
- The recipient’s check
- Not a feature a recipient checks. A sample is sent to the laboratory named in your job file, which reports whether the marker is present.
Every feature above this one is designed to be checked by a person. A taggant is the opposite: it exists to settle an argument after the fact. A marker compound is carried in the ink at very low concentration, unique to the job, and it is read by instrument in a laboratory rather than by eye.
The recipient of the document neither sees it nor needs to know it is there. What it provides is a chain of evidence — a way to say that this particular sheet came from this particular run, which is the question that actually matters when a document is disputed years later.
How we handle it
The marker used on a job, and the laboratory holding its reference, are recorded in the job file and disclosed only to the commissioning institution. We do not publish the compounds and we do not carry them in stock inks.