Journal of Forensic Research

A Study on the Objective Identification of Inkjet- and Toner-printed Characters Using the Adhesive-Tape Exfoliation Method

Abstract

Ka Young Lee*, Joong Lee, Youngsoo Lee and Young Bin Pyo

With the advancement in the development of office automation equipment, it is trendy to produce important documents using printing methods rather than writing them. Thus, identifying the type of printing method used is the most essential and important part of the research on document forgery, which is largely focused on the identification of forged documents. In particular, the printing method identification technique should be able to analyze the shapes of the printed characters and obtain diverse information to be able to specify the type of printing device that was used to print the document. Thus, the identification of the printing method that was used can resolve forgery problems by itself, and as such, diverse studies are currently being conducted to enable the identification of the type of printed characters in relation to the type of printer used. In particular, if such identification method can minimize the damage to the appraisal target, and if the results can be quantified and objectively derived, it will be highly useful in forensic science, where the objectification of judgment is important.

In this study, a method of identifying the printing method that was used (inkjet vs. toner printer) for printing a document was examined by binarizing and quantifying the images of the printed characters produced from the exfoliation method using adhesive tape.