Label tampering is more widespread than ever. Here's a brand protection toolbox.

 Label tampering comes with a steep price for the brand owner: lost revenues and damaged integrity. For consumers, it's even worse – they could be putting their health and lives on the line. And news accounts indicate just how rampant the practice is. Just this year:

·         Fake "Colgate" toothpaste that may contain a poisonous chemical has been found in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Maryland. The fake toothpaste may have contained diethylene glycol - sometimes illegally used as an inexpensive sweetener and thickening agent and commonly found in solvents and antifreeze - which the company never uses in its toothpaste.

·         In the largest US CD and DVD piracy case, agents seized nearly 500,000 CDs and 6,135 stampers capable of producing more than 300 million pirated and counterfeit CDs and DVDs. Three defendants have been sentenced.

·         Police in Mumbai, India busted a counterfeit Viagra racket and seized 25,000 pills (shipped from China and cleared by customs because they were labeled as medicines) with the equivalent worth of US $109,439. According to the city's joint commissioner of police, "It's absolutely hazardous and unfit for consumption."

Fortunately, many hi-tech companies have stepped up to the plate with a slew of state-of-the-art solutions to help companies fight back. Brady Corporation's new B-367 Custom Tamper-Evident Labels feature a unique footprint design option for an additional level of security for tamper-free labels, a custom label production process that allows very small images to be generated in the tamper-proofing feature, and is produced and sold in conjunction with Brady's supply-chain-controlled process for additional security.

Seareach plc offers Tamper Silver Void, a substrate for identifying tampering that uses a two-stage adhesive. The voiding label strongly grabs to most surfaces and, upon any attempt to remove it, will leave the word VOID on the label and on the material to which it is stuck.

Payne Security's tear tape integrates a brand protection solution into the product package itself. Its ability to carry a wide range of brand protection devices makes it an ideal solution for authentication, tamper evidence, product coding, tracking and tracing and electro-magnetic anti-theft systems.

Kosme provides a range of brand protection labeling products. Self-adhesive and wet-glue labeling options include ‘over the cap foils’ typically used for premium beer. 'Over the cap seals’, commonly known as L shape or lollipop, are ideal for plastic and glass containers and readily indicate where a container lid or vacuum seal has been invalidated. Roll-on-pilfer-proof (ROPP) caps, common on alcoholic drinks, can be supplemented with I tags, normally used as some form of decoration or identification, and bridging between the bottle and the cap.

Checkpoint's Uniquely Yours™ brand protection system can customize a solution to meet product requirements – whether it's a simple authentication application or a complex track-and-trace system.  2-D bar codes, holograms, integrated EAS and RFID tags and tamper-proof labels are some of the technologies offered in their toolbox.

Yes, counterfeiters are getting smarter. But fortunately, with today's constantly advancing technology, brand protection professionals will have the tools to outsmart them.