The Solutions Bridge

Covert and overt

Covert brand security, according to Roland Krapp, vice president of sheetfed product management, Heidelberg USA, covers, in general terms, all technological features that are unseen to the naked human eye and are made visible only by use of special equipment, such as decoders, verifiers, and similar equipment. Overt technologies, he explains, are features designed to be clearly visible so that printers easily can look for these features to determine whether packaging is fake. Examples are holographic foil or a hologram. “Covert technologies, which are unseen, must be identified with special equipment in order to identify and prove authenticity of the packaging,” says Krapp. “The major advantage of covert features is that no one actually knows what to look for on the package without the assistance of special detectors, thus they are less prone to be counterfeited.”