A QR code is a printed pattern that carries data, and anything printed can be photographed and reprinted. Every copy scans exactly like the original, which means a QR code can tell you what an item claims to be, but never that the claim is true.<\/p>\n
This is not an argument against QR codes. They are cheap, universal and genuinely useful, and we put them on things. It is an argument against one specific job people keep giving them.<\/p>\n
A QR code is a visual encoding of a short string of text, almost always a URL. It includes error correction, which is why it still scans when it is scratched, curved around a bottle or partly covered by a thumb.<\/p>\n
Two properties follow from that, and both matter.<\/p>\n
It is public. Everything a QR code contains can be read by anyone who can see it, including someone who has never bought the product. There is no such thing as a secret printed on the outside of a box.<\/p>\n
It is static. The pattern is fixed at the moment of printing. It says the same thing on the first scan and the ten thousandth, and it has no way of knowing which scan this is.<\/p>\n
Being fair about this matters, because the alternative is overselling a chip to someone who does not need one.<\/p>\n
For product information, care instructions, registration, reordering, recycling guidance and most of the consumer facing part of a product passport, a QR code is a perfectly good answer. For many projects it is the right answer, and adding a chip would be an expensive way to solve a problem nobody has.<\/p>\n
The failure is simple enough to state in one line: copying a QR code costs nothing and produces a perfect result.<\/p>\n
A counterfeiter does not need to break anything. They photograph the code on a genuine item, or buy one genuine item and scan it, and print that same code on ten thousand fakes. Every one of those codes resolves to the genuine brand’s page, which then loads, looks correct, and reassures the buyer.<\/p>\n
That is the uncomfortable part. A copied code does not fail in a way anyone notices. It works, and the brand’s own authentic page becomes the thing vouching for the counterfeit. A verification page that cannot fail is not a verification page.<\/p>\n
Nothing about the scanning phone helps. The camera decodes a pattern of squares, and at the level of the data there is no difference between an original print and a photocopy.<\/p>\n
The usual next step is to serialise: give every unit its own unique code rather than printing the same one across the line. This is a real improvement and worth doing.<\/p>\n
It gives you detection. If one serial is scanned three hundred times, in four countries, in a fortnight, something is wrong. Patterns like that are genuinely useful, and they are how a lot of brand protection teams find a counterfeit run.<\/p>\n
But notice what serialisation gives you and what it does not.<\/p>\n
It gives you evidence after the fact, spread across many scans, usually analysed centrally. It does not give the person standing in a shop holding one item any way to tell whether this particular item is real. Their scan looks exactly like everyone else’s. First scan wins is also a problem in reverse: if the counterfeit reaches the customer before the genuine article is ever scanned, the fake is the one with the clean history.<\/p>\n
Detection is not proof. They are different products and they solve different problems.<\/p>\n
The line is easier to see once you put it in one sentence.<\/p>\n
An identifier is not a secret.<\/strong> Anything printed on the outside of a product is public, copyable and static, so it can carry identity but cannot carry proof.<\/p>\n Proof requires something the copier cannot obtain by looking. In practice that means a component that holds a key it never discloses and uses it to compute a fresh, different response every time it is read, so that a recording of one response is useless for the next. That is the general principle behind contactless bank cards and electronic passports, and the same class of technique is available in NFC chips.<\/p>\n We are describing how the technology works, not making a claim about what is switched on in production today. Anyone selling you authentication should be equally precise about that distinction, and you should ask.<\/p>\n The stolen item registry is a good illustration of the top half of that table. An owner flags a bike as stolen, and someone about to buy it second hand scans the code, sees the warning and is asked to call 101. Nothing there depends on proving the bike is genuine. It depends on reaching the right record for that bike, and a printed code does that job perfectly well.<\/p>\n Copy detection patterns are worth a mention too. These are printed features designed to degrade when photocopied or rephotographed, and they do work, but they need controlled capture: a specific app and decent lighting. They sit between a plain QR code and a chip rather than replacing either.<\/p>\n Before choosing a carrier, ask one thing about your product.<\/p>\n What happens if somebody copies this code onto a thousand fakes?<\/strong><\/p>\n If the answer is “not much, they still get sent to our page and we would rather they did”, a QR code is the right call and you should spend the money elsewhere. If the answer involves safety, warranty liability, regulated goods or a price gap large enough to fund a professional counterfeiter, then a printed code is doing a job it was never built for.<\/p>\n Veribli works with QR codes, NFC and RFID, and which one belongs on a product depends entirely on what the product needs. Our tagging technology came out of nearly thirty years of tracking physical goods through industrial supply chains, so we are reasonably direct about when the cheap option is the correct one.<\/p>\n If you want an honest opinion on what your product actually needs, call us on 01482 455 855<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A QR code is a printed pattern that carries data, and anything printed can be photographed and reprinted. Every copy scans exactly like the original, which means a QR code can tell you what an item claims to be, but never that the claim is true. This is not an argument against QR codes. They… Read More »Why a QR code on its own proves nothing<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":339,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\tMatching the carrier to the job<\/h2>\n
\n\n
\n \nWhat you need it to do<\/th>\n Is a QR code enough?<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n \n Take a customer to product information<\/td>\n Yes<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Carry care, repair or recycling instructions<\/td>\n Yes<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Register ownership, or reach a stolen item record<\/td>\n Yes<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Serve the consumer view of a product passport<\/td>\n Usually yes<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Detect a counterfeit run across many scans<\/td>\n Yes, if serialised<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Let one person verify one item in their hands<\/td>\n No<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Resist deliberate, funded copying<\/td>\n No<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n The question to ask<\/h2>\n