Holograms detect digital fraud

A new technique for detecting forged photographs will help newspapers and magazines check celebrity pictures that might have been doctored to make them more newsworthy, and prevent hackers from tampering with sensitive legal images including fingerprint records and medical scans used as evidence in court.

Defence agencies could also use the technique to verify the source of secret military reports, and to protect satellite images, such as aerial photographs of the Iraqi desert, from manipulation.

Developed by physicists Professor Giuseppe Schirripa Spagnolo, Carla Simonetti and Lorenzo Cozzella from the University of Roma Tre in Rome, Italy, this research was published today in the latest issue of the Institute of Physics journal, Journal of Optics A.

In their system, an image, e.g. a company logo, is added to a digital photograph as an invisible 'watermark'. Any subsequent attempt to alter the content of the photograph also results in damage to the watermark.