PR: Optaglio delivered anti-counterfeit technology for 20m personal documents in H1

Optaglio, the global leader in high-resolution security holograms, today announced it delivered security elements for 20 million polycarbonate ID cards, passports and driving licenses in the first half of this year. It means more than 30 per cent growth in comparison with the same period of 2016. Optaglio thus strengthened its position of a leader in polycarbonate focused solutions.

A trend towards polycarbonate documents with machine-readable biometric data now prevails around the world. More and more governments issue either polycarbonate cards or paper documents with polycarbonate page. Most of the market analysts say that up to 2022, only a few nations will insist on entirely paper-based documents.

"Of course, polycarbonate is not the only interesting technology. The market moves fast; composite cards producers can surprise us and renaissance of PVC cannot be ruled out. However, at this moment, polycarbonate is the king. We do not expect a change in the forthcoming years," says Dr. Tomáš Karenský, senior research manager in Optaglio. "We have not adapted a technology originally focused on paper. Several years ago, we started an entirely new development project narrowly focused on polycarbonate. Now we can benefit from this decision, but we are not sleeping. Another major innovation is under development. Very likely the product will be available by the end of this year.

Product line Optaglio OVMesh focused on polycarbonate cards enables:

• Integrating security holograms into polycarbonate cards to create a single polycarbonate unit without any heterogeneous adhesive.

• Producing holograms that consist of thousands of tiny pieces. During the card lamination, the melted polycarbonate flows between these pieces. Any removal attempt thus results in irreversible dissolution of the hologram.

• Combining holograms with microholograms, microscopic metallic dots sometimes called "holographic dust." There are a full hologram and letters engraved on each dot.

Most of Optaglio production for polycarbonate cards is now delivered to security printing companies and card producers in Asia and Europe. This year Optaglio also starts to offer application machines so that the clients can perform entire production process in-house.

Optaglio technologies are developed in Optaglio LABS in Lochovice, Czech Republic, with close cooperation with several European universities. Optaglio was founded by a group of scientists from Czech Academy of Science, and it still adopts an approach focused not just on product innovation but also on deep research of underlying physical and chemical issues.

About Optaglio

Optaglio is a research organization and the global leader in high-resolution e-beam lithography security holograms. During almost 25 years of our history, we have delivered hundreds of millions of holograms to governments, financial institutions and other organizations in more than 50 countries around the world. Our unique technology has been broadly recognized as the industry standard for optical security.

Optaglio, certified to relevant international standards, operates under strict 24/7 security supervision. Our comprehensive security system covers people, processes, data, and facilities. The company is a member of International Hologram Association (IHMA) through which it registers all its security devices and holograms in the central security register, in London.