The ROCC Pattern Recognition Ltd subsidiary of ROCC Corp Ltd, Crawley, West Sussex has signed a worldwide marketing agreement for its DigiScan signature verification system with New York based Cheque Alert Inc. The DigiScan technology works by creating a numerical code from a minimum of six sample signatures which is then either printed alongside the signature box on a cheque or encoded in the magnetic strip on a credit card. A comparison between the written signature and the numerical code by DigiScan indicates whether the signature is acceptable. Tests at Brighton Polytechnic showed the Z80-based system to be 95% accurate for general use, and 99% accurate with forgeries where the forger has not seen the real signature. DigiScan will initially be marketed in the US where, according to a House of Representatives Sub-Committee, fraud, counterfeit and security breach costs $50,000m per annum. Success depends on co-operation from the US banks and credit card companies and the company is awaiting results from a number of test sites. The technology will be licensed to other equipment manufacturers for use in their own products, such as point-of-sale terminals and cheque processing systems encoders, or it can be acquired as an end product. The system is expected to cost around $400 to $500 per unit in mass production, but could be as low as $200 if it were integrated into existing credit and banking operations.
