Delhi Releases High-Security Liquor Labels for Track and Trace

Remember when we wrote a while back in Tax Stamp & Traceability News™ about the very plain, unsecured, serialised barcode label that had been introduced in Delhi, India to track and trace spirits, wine and beer products between distillery and final retailer (TSN January 2016)?

Unsurprisingly, due to their complete lack of security features, as well as the fact that anyone was able to produce the labels by following very loose printing specifications, they created havoc in the market, with the same barcode turning up multiple times on multiple products.

Well, now we are happy to report that the Delhi Department of Excise has moved to a much more secure label, which incorporates a patented solution developed by the start-up company Transpacks Technologies. The label is printed by the Security Printing Press of India, one of Transpack’s largest printing partners.

The solution, which has been branded Checko, is based on the PUF (physically unclonable function) phenomenon. It consists of a patch of screen-printed ink, which is applied to the label and which, upon drying, develops a natural, random, unique pattern that cannot be cloned.