CTI: Tamper indicating inks

To date, most tamper indicators only reveal heat tampering (such as using a heat gun to melt glue on packaging tape). BlindSpotz™ Tamper Freeze and Tamper Heat inks show color and messaging when thieves use heat or cold to tamper with packages.

The long-time industry standard has been a ‘high-heat’ tamper indicator that changes color, but now there’s a tool to fight bad actors who use cold spray, freezing or liquid nitrogen to (1) pull apart a money or document bag and (2) remove and replace an expired label or bypass security tape–treated, high-heat irreversible inks.

According to CTI Founder Lyle Small, “Criminals have figured out that the way to get around high-heat tampering indicators is to ‘go cold’ by exposing packaging to very low temperatures. This can “delaminate” many adhesives without activating a tamper-heat indicator.

“The BlindSpotz™ Tamper Heat and Tamper Freeze inks eliminate both threats,” Small continued. CTI’s Tamper Freeze ink is the only tamper-evident product on the market to identify sub-freezing tampering.

Additionally, the Tamper Heat ink offers multiple advantages compared to existing high-heat tamper evident inks: (1) they maintain color if exposed to very high temperatures (greater than 100° C for instance), (2) Tamper Heat/ Tamper Freeze technology activates within a 5° C window, (3) can be printed with adhesives and over-print varnishes and (4) will last much longer on the shelf than existing “heat irreversible” systems, in both wet and printed states.

The Tamper Heat and Tamper Freeze inks are part of the BlindSpotz™ technology portfolio from CTI developed to print sensors on-pack to measure temperature compliance, confirm high pressure processing (HPP) pasteurization and detect tampering or water damage.

The ‘Tamper Heat-Freeze’ ink is available in UV Flexo and Water-based inks systems.