Digital watermarking technology is a type of information hiding technology. It was born to meet the needs of information concealment and tracking, representing a cutting-edge research topic in the international field of information security technology in recent years. It is a novel technology capable of achieving information hiding and tracking in open network environments, and it is closely related to information security, information hiding, data encryption, and other areas. Furthermore, due to the emergence of high-precision color printers, copiers, and scanners, many innovative printing anti-counterfeiting methods are often subject to counterfeiting and imitation, and the markets for pirated and fake certificates remain rampant. As a new anti-counterfeiting technology with high technical content, low cost, and convenient application, digital watermarking technology has emerged accordingly.
Digital watermarking technology embeds certain identifying information directly into public information through specific algorithms to achieve the purpose of concealing its existence. It holds broad application value in fields such as intellectual property protection, secure communication, and content authentication. As an efficient and easily popularized "printing anti-counterfeiting" method, this technology has achieved good results in protecting the copyright of various printed materials and also holds promising development prospects in the fields of anti-counterfeiting printing and security packaging. Currently, research institutions in various countries are conducting in-depth studies on digital printing technology, with new research findings continuously emerging. This lays a solid foundation for continuously enhancing the anti-counterfeiting capability of digital watermarking technology and creates favorable conditions for further expanding its application areas. This section only addresses some basic issues of current digital watermarking technology and briefly introduces its applications in anti-counterfeiting printing and security packaging.