Against paper theft and manipulation of driving license issuance

The fraud involving driving licenses extends far beyond mere violent burglaries of ATMs; in theory, it can occur anywhere where there is direct contact with driving license documents.

GeBE Development Manager, Dipl. Ing (FH) Klaus Baldig explains how specially developed thermal printers with sophisticated printing technology are used to combat the problem of ticket manipulation.

Against paper theft and manipulation of driving license issuance

Security measures for thermal printers

Paper remains the most common carrier medium for driving licenses. However, it was believed that these papers were only available in printed form and were only valid for trips from A to B; in reality, they were far from being so.

Because thieves and scammers are increasingly looking for printed and unprinted ticket paper. No wonder, since these are basically blank banknotes that only need to be printed with any desired value. There are frequent reports of burglaries at ticket machines with the aim of stealing not only the money but also the unprinted paper rolls. Even cases where the thieves choose to keep the heavy coins instead of the paper money are reported. But that’s not all. The fraud with ticket paper goes even further. It is not only limited to violent burglaries of ticket machines, but theoretically takes place wherever there is direct contact with ticket paper. Consider that even a short strip of about 5 centimeters of ticket paper without printing could have a value of more than 50 euros. In the past, there have been repeated reports of cases where the print of a cheap ticket was „erased“ with hairspray and then sold on with a new, more valuable print.

To minimize paper theft and manipulation when printing driving licenses, both thermal paper manufacturers and the manufacturers of thermal printers are increasingly resorting to very specific security measures. The GeBE-PIANO Box of GeBE Elektronik und Feinwerktechnik GmbH in Germering serves as an example of such precautions for thermal printers.

1. Measures for operational safety and error correction

The fundamental requirement for printing money-bearing paper is that the blank transit ticket paper is reliably printed and thus produces good readability. This is usually achieved using the equally reliable and low-maintenance technology of thermal direct printing. Because thermal direct printers do not require color ribbon, ink or toner for imaging, everything necessary is already included in the thermal paper. Therefore, no toner can run out or the print will become faded because the ink has run out. Prints of the highest quality are guaranteed, while service interventions can be kept to a minimum.

1.1. Ensure print quality

When printing driver's licenses and tickets, in particular, errors that would render the monetary-value printed documents unusable must not occur in principle. And if a fault does occur in the system, the thermal printer must at least detect it in time and react accordingly.

A typical error pattern of a thermal printer is the failure of individual or multiple print points. Causes for this can be static discharges, contaminations of the print head, or excessively high print energies. A possible consequence of a destroyed print point is: the so-called fence (garden fence) barcode on the ticket can no longer be read securely. All driver tickets printed from now on could no longer be checked. The printer would therefore need to be replaced as soon as possible. …

Author: Dipl.-Ing. Klaus Baldig, GeBE