Warsaw has just hosted ODDS 2025 – the Optical & Digital Document Security™ conference – and once again, the event proved to be more than just a technical gathering. It was a reminder that secure documents are not dull, bureaucratic artefacts but living examples of human ingenuity. They sit at the intersection of science, design, and trust. They deserve to be celebrated not only for the technologies they embody but for the fundamental role they play in our societies.
At the root of the matter is the question, ‘what is trust made of?’ In human relationships, it is invisible: a feeling, a belief, a hope. In societies, though, trust cannot survive on sentiment alone. It needs to be recorded and exchanged. Secure documents are the tokens of this trust. They allow us to say: ‘this person is who they claim to be; this note is worth what it says; this licence grants the right it describes’.
As Thomas Edison remarked, ‘genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration’.
Secure documents embody this perfectly. They are not the product of a single breakthrough but of decades of relentless testing and quiet innovation. Each feature is the perspiration of countless scientists, designers, technologists and product managers working to keep trust intact.
Consider the documents most of us handle every day: passports, banknotes, ID cards, driving licences, and even certificates or health passes.
The passport is perhaps the most familiar. As the BBC documentary ‘The Secret Genius of Modern Life 1’ recently reminded us, a passport is not just a travel document but a marvel of layered security. OVDs control light, chips carry our identity in the form of biometric data, and cryptographic protocols protect against identity attack.
At ODDS 2025, ZSST and GET Group showcased the next generation of passport security, from 3D light-field imaging to global lessons in secure ID implementation.
Banknotes may be even more ingenious. They must be universally recognisable but impossible (almost) to forge. They bring together colour-shifting inks, holograms, tactile features and microtext. EUROPOL, speaking at one of the pre-conference seminars, highlighted the resilience of currency design against organised counterfeiting, while SURYS IN Groupe and Orell Füssli unveiled innovations that outpace the forgers.
Beyond these familiar forms, ODDS 2025 highlighted certificates, brand protection labels, and health passes. In an era of concern over pandemics and counterfeit pharmaceuticals, such documents can mean the difference between good health and disaster.
Taken together, these documents are genius because they allow us to trust the world we move through – whether travelling across borders, paying in shops, accessing healthcare or proving who we are.
ODDS 2025 coincided with the United Nations ID Day on 16 September. The UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 16.9 – providing legal identity for all by 2030 – is a stark reminder that secure documents are not a luxury but a necessity. Without identity, people are excluded from education, healthcare, financial services and justice. They are invisible to the state and vulnerable to exploitation. Secure documents are genius because they enable inclusion. They give people the tools to prove who they are, to claim their rights and to participate fully in society.
Of course, secure documents do not exist in a vacuum. They are constantly challenged by counterfeiters, fraudsters and hostile actors. As ODDS made clear, artificial intelligence now threatens to generate convincing fakes of both physical and digital credentials. But AI is also part of the defence, powering new authentication tools that can outperform human eyes.
Quantum computing looms on the horizon, threatening existing cryptography but also inspiring quantum-resilient alternatives.
Why should we celebrate the genius of secure documents? Because without them, the world would grind to a halt.
Air travel, commerce, and even daily life depend on being able to prove identity and value, quickly and securely.
ODDS 2025 demonstrated that secure documents are proof that technology can be beautiful as well as functional. But their true genius lies in their adaptability. They are never finished; they are always evolving to meet the next threat.
1 - www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001s8qd/ad/the-secret-genius-of-modern-life-series-2-1-passport
