Property marking specialists including Markitwise and Smartwater have criticised the Government’s ‘Chipping of Goods’ initiative which aims to develop electronic data tagging systems to combat the theft of merchandise and personal property, as ‘flawed’ and ‘unworkable’.
The Home Office recently invited companies to bid for a share of up to GB pound 4.5 million with strategies for developing tagging systems. It is envisaged the scheme will help investigators and police officers in identifying and recovering stolen items.
According to the Home Office widespread chipping of goods would “overcome many of the limitations of conventional systems” used to identify the ownership of personal property. It claims the scheme would provide proof of ownership, reduce counterfeit goods, and relieve pressure on police resources in recovering stolen items as well as increasing the risks for thieves who would find it more difficult to find outlets to accept the goods.
Bedazzled by technology
SMT contacted some of the leading players in the property marking field for their views on the new scheme. Dennis Dolling, managing director of Markitwise, told SMT, although it sounds nice in theory, in practice the whole scheme is flawed and unworkable.
He said: “As usual, the government has gone for a technical solution and have failed to look at the practicalities from a commercial point of view. For instance, how are they going to get all the OEMs to adopt the same system and what products are they aiming to cover? It will be an extra cost for the manufacturer anyway, and how do they envisage monitoring it?” Markitwise has operated simple property marking systems for a number of years, based on labels and registration codes. Its latest device is to use micro labels which can be used to protect products including spectacles and laptops and retrieved via e-mail. Dolling claims such a system is a simple solution to property marking which enables the police to actually do something about the property, once recovered.
Chemical profile
Smartwater operates a more sophisticated property marking system which is in use by companies including British Airways and is backed by the insurance industry. Its database is run by the Forensic Science Service which was involved in developing the chemical solution which is modelled on DNA profiling. It involves three layers of security, including ultra violet ink, a laser particle smaller than a grain of a salt which includes the owner’s registration number, and there is another forensic layer which involves taking a swab of the product to be analysed in a labarotary. Smartwater has been proven by West Midlands Police at the Yew Tree Estate in West Bromwich where it is said to have reduced property theft by 30%. It has also received an award from the government as a millennium product.
Phil Cleary, joint managing director of Smartwater, said he welcomed any initiative that would reduce the present confusion within the property marking industry, but concurred with Dolling that there are several flaws in proposing to develop the Chipping of Goods initiative. His doubts included whether the scheme would be voluntary or whether the Government would compel all manufacturers to put chips in, increasing their cost base. He added: “Crime is a worldwide problem, so would imported products be covered by the scheme? If the same chip is not used, would the police have to use a number of different scanners at stations in order to retrieve registration codes? Also who would run the database, would it be the government or would it be a commercial organisation and if it is the latter, what would happen if that organisation went bust?” Cleary also warned that criminals may focus on defeating the technology. He said: “There are several limitations in using chips. Some are simply resistant to electronic spikes. In theory, it is a nice idea, but in practice, it hasn’t a hope. We fear that this is GB pound 4.5 million of tax payers’ money that will disappear into the pockets of a chosen few consultants, obscure think tanks and R&D departments of large companies.” Smartwater has already been used to protect some of the parts used in cars and has just entered into an agreement with Vauxhall to launch the first ‘DNA’ car. In North America, the product has also been cost-effectively put on production lines for some parts and Cleary says the same could be done in the UK. Cleary also states that using an incentive-based scheme such as Smartwater, which is backed by Commercial Union, has more chances of success than trying to encourage manufacturers to increase their costs, which ultimately would be passed on to consumers.
