The Video Spectral Comparator

Questioned Document Examination is usually a time-consuming process, there are many techniques available to trained Document Examiners under laboratory conditions, but none provide such rapid results as Infrared Document Examination. Microscopic examination, Chemical Ink Analysis, Thin-Layer Chromatography and Scanning Electron Microscopy are all useful but slower methods of document analysis. Besides being slow, they can also be inappropriate for the examination of some kinds of bound documents(eg. passports).

The VSC operates as an infrared examination system, and uses the non-destructive techniques of infrared absorption and luminescence to detect fraudulent documents. It can be used to rapidly identify forgeries, alterations, obliterations, additions and erasures. The examination system employs techniques familiar to the forensic laboratory, but which are little known to the public and thus potential forgers. The IR techniques rely on the properties of inks outside of the visible wavelengths of light (400-700nm) - so even when a forgery is absolutely perfect to the naked eye, or an erasure completely invisible, the VSC can immediately extract information from the behaviour of the ink at other wavelengths.