"The beauty of this system is that we do not need to modify the item being protected in any way with tags, chips or ink - it is as if documents and packaging had their own unique DNA, " said Professor Cowburn.
An Israeli outfit called On Track Innovations (nasdaq: OTIV - news - people ) has developed chips that carry biographical and biometric data to be inserted in ID documents.
Global trends such as urbanization, digitization of governmental documents, improved banking security and growing NFC adoption means that security chips are being adopted more than ever to protect user data, credentials and finances.