09.09.05
According to published reports, U.S. officials, concerned that widely accessible technology is making it easier to forge money, said April 5 they planned to add new colors to the notes to foil counterfeiters.
“What we’ve seen now is the potential for increased counterfeiting by computers and scanners in people’s homes,” Thomas Ferguson, director of the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing, told Reuters.
While Mr. Ferguson said scanned copies of dollars are usually poor quality since they do not reproduce security features such as watermarks, “our goal is to make it harder and harder to be able to do that and easier and easier for people to recognize those counterfeit notes.”
The new tints were not revealed, but officials said they would appear as subtle tones in the background of the design.
The U.S. made security enhancements to its currency in 1996, adding embedded threads that glow under UV light, microprinting and color-shifting ink to deter would-be counterfeiters.
The new notes are still being designed, and should be unveiled to the public by the end of the year and put in circulation in mid-2003. The size of the bills should remain unchanged.
“The addition of the color will enhance the design, and make it more recognizable, and easier to use,” Mr. Ferguson said. “But it will still look traditionally American.”
“What we’ve seen now is the potential for increased counterfeiting by computers and scanners in people’s homes,” Thomas Ferguson, director of the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing, told Reuters.
While Mr. Ferguson said scanned copies of dollars are usually poor quality since they do not reproduce security features such as watermarks, “our goal is to make it harder and harder to be able to do that and easier and easier for people to recognize those counterfeit notes.”
The new tints were not revealed, but officials said they would appear as subtle tones in the background of the design.
The U.S. made security enhancements to its currency in 1996, adding embedded threads that glow under UV light, microprinting and color-shifting ink to deter would-be counterfeiters.
The new notes are still being designed, and should be unveiled to the public by the end of the year and put in circulation in mid-2003. The size of the bills should remain unchanged.
“The addition of the color will enhance the design, and make it more recognizable, and easier to use,” Mr. Ferguson said. “But it will still look traditionally American.”