Documents and proofs of all kinds, such as job references and grade transcripts, invoices, etc., are easy to forge thanks to many digital tools. To prove the authenticity of such documents is often very difficult and cumbersome, for example by calling the invoicing party or the former employer. It is also often a problem when a large number of documents needs to be issued and checked quickly: for example, at the beginning of the Corona crisis, when many employees had to show proof from their employer when crossing a border every day on their way to work. The only way to verify this was to call the issuing employer – tedious and time-consuming.

DocSeal solves these problems. The new application from Fraunhofer SIT's Media Forensics department thwarts common manipulation tricks – both for paper documents and for digital PDFs, which should be just as verifiable after printing as the digital document. To do this, the application simply uses a colorful barcode that is printed on the document. Authenticity can then be verified using the DocSeal app, which works on any conventional smartphone with a camera. The document is scanned together with the colorful barcode, and after a few seconds the smartphone screen displays information on whether the document in question is genuine – or in which places it has been altered.

Without a database and data protection-friendly

The colorful JAB code can store much more data than a conventional black-and-white code. It contains the most important original information from the document and an electronic signature. This clearly proves that the document was indeed generated by the issuing office. This means that all important information is stored directly on the document in the colorful JAB code, completely decentralized. Users therefore need neither access to a central database nor to a cost-intensive infrastructure. DocSeal empowers the users to control their personal data themselves, they do not end up in a central database, but remain completely decentralized on the document. On the one hand, this protects the data of the users and also makes the solution so easy and fast to use for various applications.

Further information

DocSeal was developed as part of the ATHENE project JASA – JAB Codes for Secure Ad-hoc documents. The National Research Center for Applied Cybersecurity ATHENE is the largest cybersecurity research organization in Europe.

More info on the JAB Code at www.jabcode.org. You can also try out the colorful barcode here.