UTeM develops QOI technology to combat counterfeit products

Malacca: Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Malacca (UTeM) has developed a Quick Object Identifier (QOI) technology through the TrueScan mobile application to enable users to identify the authenticity of a product in the market.
UTeM assistant vice-chancellor (industry and community network) Prof Dr Goh Ong Sing said the application that used the QOI technology was aimed at eliminating global counterfeit trade with algorithms while providing the absolute protection of a product against counterfeiting.
"The application was developed by a group of UTeM researchers for Apple and Android smartphones to enable customers to scan and verify the authenticity of a product.
"If there is a forgery, this application will send a push notification to the consumer and this will allow the company or sales representative to further investigate the product," he told Bernama.
He said the specific QOI code could not be reproduced without the use of a specially designed interface programming application (API) and the technology could be trusted in terms of speed, reliability, information capacity, security as well as cost-efficiency.
Goh said the real-time technology would start working once the product was scanned, and this would allow customers, retailers, suppliers, and law enforcement and corporate investigators to identify the genuine product from the counterfeit, on the go.
He said counterfeit products not only posed a danger to the health and safety of consumers all over the world but also threatened governments, business profits, and income-generating communities.
"QOI technology has a huge market potential in ensuring that no illegal sales occur and is able to revolutionise food, clothing or other retail industries.
"In addition, this technology is not only limited to retail products, but it can also be used for the purpose of verifying a document's validity such as academic certificates and salutations such as Datuk, Tan Sri and so on," he said. — Bernama