Paper Document Authentication Using Print-Scan Resistant Image Hashing and Public-Key Cryptography

Abstract

Identity documents, such as passports, visa stickers, national identity cards and educational institutions’ identity cards etc., are used for personal identity verification by different government and academic organizations. These printed domain documents can be counterfeited by deploying different forgery techniques. This work suggests authenticity verification of printed documents and their sources using digital signature based on print-scan resistant image hashing and public-key cryptography. We present application of print-scan resistant image hashing based on wave atom transform (WAT) for document authentication. Image hash is calculated by extracting robust image features in WAT domain. Hash value of the person’s original image is encrypted with the private key of trusted authorities to form a digital signature which is encoded in a QR code printed on the document. Digital signature, extracted from a QR code, is decrypted with the public key of trusted authorities for identity verification, thus provides offline verification of printed documents without the need of online network access or database.