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“When you talk of covert security, it relates to technologies that are hard to recognize by the naked eye and are extremely difficult to reproduce,” says Jacquie Wells, marketing and communications, Kurz Transfer Products, L.P. “These technologies often include nanotext and hidden images.”

Other advantages of covert brand protection include not interfering with the package graphics, and their authentication requires specific personnel to be armed with readers/verifiers tuned and calibrated to the actual technology, according to Lynn Crutchfield, president, Acucote, Inc. However, he notes that using covert technologies alone does not offer a high level of security. “Some of the disadvantages of using covert features alone in a brand security program are that they are not visible to the consumer and that the readers typically can only detect specific technologies. At best, experience tells us that only using covert technologies in a brand security program offers the brand owner a moderate level of security.”