Document signature using intrinsic features for counterfeit detection

Abstract

Document security does not only play an important role in specific domains e.g. passports, checks and degrees but also in every day documents e.g. bills and vouchers. Using special high-security features for this class of documents is not feasible due to the cost and the complexity of these methods. We present an approach for detecting falsified documents using a document signature obtained from its intrinsic features: bounding boxes of connected components are used as a signature. Using the model signature learned from a set of original bills, our approach can identify documents whose signature significantly differs from the model signature. Our approach uses globally optimal document alignment to build a model signature that can be used to compute the probability of a new document being an original one. Preliminary evaluation shows that the method is able to reliably detect faked documents. © 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.