Bayer Turns Plastic Into Data Storage Medium

October 12th, 2006: Holographic storage may be making waves when it comes to hard disk technology, however, Bayer has taken a different angle with the technology and is instead using it to increase pass card security.

Swinging precipitously between the need to store personal data for security verification and protection against unauthorised access, access cards can both increase and threaten an organisation’s security.

To be unveiled at this year’s ‘Security 2006’ exhibition in Essen, Bayer claims that its PhenStor is the world’s first security pass system based on holographic data storage.

The company has succeeded in writing data holographically into a plastic card, enabling it says, extremely high protection against unauthorised access to the stored data so it cannot be tampered with or copied.

Bayer says that the material it has developed is resistant to electromagnetic fields, water and everyday mechanical stress. The PhenoStor material features a data density of 3 Mbit/mm², which the company says will in future give a pass the size of a credit card several megabytes of storage capacity.

The technology naturally has many uses that immediately spring to mind. Bayer says a pass system is already in place while other applications could include visible and invisible security features for items such as medications.

Like RFID the technology has a lot of potential, for now information such as read/write speeds and how exactly the data is secured is to be released.

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