The invention pertains to security bags. In particular, the invention relates to a tamper evident bag and a tamper evident kit.
Transporting valuable goods, including banknotes, confidential documents or even jewellery, from one destination to another, is a process which is often wrought with criminal activity. One such threat is observed during the transportation of cash from businesses to banks. Businesses hire security companies specialized in such transportation in order to ensure the safety of their cash. However, the value of cash inserted into a security bag does not always correlate with the value of cash received by the bank. In such cases, it becomes prudent to identify individuals who gained access to the content of the security bag. In many cases, chain of custody documentation is insufficient. Thus, it is necessary to identify suspects by identifying at which stage the security bag was tampered with, especially by means of visible tamper evidence.
Security bags are durable bags utilized to store and transport highly valuable goods or confidential documents. Security bags are designed to provide two forms of protection: tamper resistance and tamper evidence. Tamper resistance aims to provide a security bag which resists unauthorized entry by constructing the security bag so that it is difficult to open. Tamper evident security bags, on the other hand, provide protection in terms of indicating to an observer when the bag has had unauthorized entry. It should be noted that tamper proof security bags are implausible. Hence, a combination of tamper resistance and tamper evidence features presents the best possible deterrent for criminals.
Various security bags with associated securing devices have been described. Such devices are often secured by specialized adhesive tapes. However, such adhesive tapes have the disadvantage of not sufficiently indicating whether or not tampering has occurred at the sealed end of the security bag. Moreover, these security bags are expensive to manufacture and require intense concentration or attention in order to obtain an effective seal and later, to establish whether or not tampering has occurred. A tamper evident bag in accordance with the preamble of claim 1 is disclosed by
The inventor is aware of such security bags and sealing devices, as well as their respective advantages and disadvantages. The invention aims to provide an improved alternative to existing security bags and devices, by providing a fully tamper evident, sealable security bag.
According to a first aspect of the invention, there is provided a tamper evident bag as specified in more detail in claim 1 which includes
The bag indicator and seal indicator are in the form of visual indicators.
The association between the bag visual indicator and the seal visual indicator may be that the visual indicators are identical to each other, related to each other, associated with each other or the like.
The bag visual indicator and seal visual indicator may include any one or more of: a numerical code, an alphabetical code, a bar code, a colour code, a sequence, a hologram, an image, a symbol, a watermark, a pattern, a geometrical design, a shape, an optical diffraction or the like.
The bag visual indicator and seal visual indicator may be constructed from any one or more of laser printing, ink-jet printing, thermal transfer printing, impact ribbon printing, embossing, etching, lithography, flexography, screen-printing, gravure printing, hot stamping, magnetic printing, coded printing or the like.
The bag visual indicator and seal visual indicator may be visible under any one or more of the naked eye, infrared light, ultraviolet light or the like.
The security bag may be in the form of a rectangular body, shaped and dimensioned to accommodate various objects. The security bag may be in the form of an envelope, packet, messenger bag, courier bag or the like. The security bag may be disposable or non-disposable.
The at least one opening of the security bag may be elongated and may be in the form of a slit, window opening, aperture or the like, the at least one opening allowing the insertion of various objects into the security bag.
The security bag may be manufactured by any one or more of: vacuum forming, 3D printing, side welding, single or multiple extrusion, blown film extrusion or the like. In a preferred embodiment, the security bag may be co-extruded from two materials, each selected for properties of durability, colour, tear resistance, cut resistance or the like.
The security bag may be manufactured from any suitable material or combination of materials, such that the security bag includes properties of durability, tear resistance, cut resistance or the like. Suitable materials include plastic, fabric, biodegradable materials or the like. The security bag may be manufactured to any appropriate thickness.
The bag visual indicator may include one or more of an external bag visual indicator, an internal bag visual indicator or the like. The internal bag visual indicator may be located inside the security bag and may be associated with the external bag visual indicator. In a preferred embodiment, the external bag visual indicator may be in the form of a plurality of external bag visual indicators. In this embodiment, the security bag may include an external bag visual indicator on an upper portion of the security bag, proximate the at least one opening and an associated external bag visual indicator on a lower portion of the security bag.
The seal may be integrated with the security bag, such that the seal forms part of the security bag.
The seal is in the form of an adhesive seal. The adhesive seal may include a substrate portion and an adhesive portion, the substrate portion being defined by an operatively outer face of the seal and the adhesive portion being defined by an operatively inner face of the seal, in use to be affixed to the security bag. The adhesive portion of the adhesive seal may be affixed over the at least one opening of the security bag in use, such that the adhesive seal prevents access to an interior of the security bag and thus, the contents thereof. It is to be appreciated that the seal visual indicator may be provided on one or both of the substrate portion and the adhesive portion.
The adhesive portion may be in the form of a material having adhesive properties, for sealing and securing the at least one opening. In particular, the material having adhesive properties may ensure proper bonding of the seal to the security bag, the adhesive curing within 2 minutes of affixing the seal over the at least one opening. The adhesive portion may in the form of an adhesive tape, label, sticker, film, foil, rubber-based seal or the like. The adhesive portion may further include a pressure sensitive adhesive.
The adhesive portion may include an adhesive which causes a visible adhesive residue on the security bag when the adhesive seal is removed.
The adhesive portion may include a solvent revealing layer, in use to reveal previous application of a solvent to the security bag. The solvent may include any one or more of saliva, water, an acidic solvent, an alkaline solvent or the like. In one embodiment, the solvent revealing layer may reveal the presence of the solvent by an observable change such as a colour change. In another embodiment, the solvent revealing layer may reveal the presence of the solvent by the adhesive portion not affixing to the security bag where the solvent was previously applied.
The substrate portion may include an interacting layer for interacting with adhesive. In particular, the interacting layer may interact with adhesive to produce an observable change such that placement of another adhesive seal over an original adhesive seal is revealed. In use, the interacting layer may interact with adhesive when another adhesive seal is placed over the substrate portion of an original adhesive seal, normally to conceal a cut in the original adhesive seal.
The adhesive seal may be manufactured to be cut resistant. For example, the adhesive seal may be manufactured to include glass particles, glass fibers or any other cut resistant particles to prevent cutting of the seal.
The adhesive seal has at least one transparent portion. The adhesive seal is designed for being affixed over the at least one opening such that the transparent portion of the seal overlays an external bag visual indicator of the security bag such that the external bag visual indicator remains externally visible to an observer.
The adhesive seal may be provided with a backing strip for storage and transport purposes. The backing strip may prevent premature adhesion of the adhesive seal to undesired positions on the security bag and may be removed from the adhesive seal prior to use.
The security bag may include a secondary tamper evident means. The secondary tamper evident means may be in the form of a solvent closure, a hot melt adhesive strip, zipper locks or the like. In use, the secondary tamper evident means may produce an irreversible change to the security bag such that tampering is evident. The irreversible change may be in the form of swelling, dissolving, discolouration, distortion, perforation or the like. The secondary tamper evident means may be positioned proximate any one or more of the at least one opening and edges of the security bag. The security bag may further include sealed, tamper-evident edges.
The security bag may include external or internal printing. The external printing may provide instructions, a chain of custody section, writing panels or the like. The external printing may also include tamper evident security bag edge seal printing.
According to a second aspect of the invention, there is provided a tamper evident kit as defined in claim 13 which includes a security bag; and a corresponding seal separately.
The invention is now described, by way of non-limiting example, with reference to the accompanying figures.
In the figure(s):
In the figures, like reference numerals denote like parts of the invention unless otherwise indicated.
In
As shown in the Figures, the bag visual indicator (16) is associated with an identical seal visual indicator (20). The visual indicators (16, 20) are in the form of an alphabetical and numerical code sequence, specifically "XYZ1234". The visual indicators (16, 20) have been formed by laser printing on to the security bag (12) and seal (18) respectively. The laser printed visual indicators (16, 20) are visible to the naked eye.
In this example, the security bag (12) is in the form of a rectangular body, shaped and dimensioned to accommodate approximately fifty R200 notes. The security bag (12) is in the form of a packet and is disposable, intended for one use only. The opening (14) of the security bag (12) is characterized by an elongated slit in a front panel of the security bag (12). The security bag (12) is manufactured by co-extruding two durable plastic materials, each plastic material being of a different colour.
As can be seen in the Figures, the bag visual indicator (16) is in the form of an external visual indicator and includes two bag visual indicators (16): a first bag visual indicator (16a) is positioned on an upper portion of the security bag (12) and a second bag visual indicator (16b), identical to the first bag visual indicator (16a), is positioned on a lower portion of the security bag (12).
The seal (18) is in the form of an adhesive tape and is provided separately. In the figures, no distinction between the adhesive portion and substrate portion is shown. The seal (18) has one portion which is transparent, forming a transparent strip along the length of the seal (18) which is flanked by an upper and lower opaque strip. The seal visual indicator (20) is comprised of three, separate, spaced-apart seal visual indicators (20), with one positioned in the upper opaque strip and two positioned in the lower opaque strip.
In
The adhesive seal (18) also includes a backing strip for storage and transport purposes (not shown). The backing strip prevents premature adhesion of the seal (18) to undesired positions on the security bag (12). The backing strip is removed from the seal (18) prior to use.
The security bag (12) includes a secondary tamper evident means in the form of a solvent closure (not shown) encompassing the opening (14). This solvent closure results in an irreversible dissolving of the security bag (12) such that any attempt at tampering is evident to the observer.
As indicated by faint lines in
In use, the security bag (12), having an opening (14) and two bag visual indicators (16) is provided. The seal (18), having a seal visual indicator (20) identical to the bag visual indicators (16), is affixed to the security bag (12), such that the transparent strip of the seal (18) overlays the first bag visual indicator (16a), allowing the bag visual indicator (16a) to be visible to the observer. The association between the bag - (16) and seal visual indicators (20) renders evidence of unauthorized access if the visual indicators (16, 20) are not correctly associated, i.e. identical. In this way, the tamper evident bag (10) provides the observer with the ability to clearly detect when unauthorized entry has occurred via the associated visual indicators (16, 20).
The inventor believes that the invention, as described and illustrated, provides a tamper evident bag and a tamper evident kit which provide superior tamper evidence means.
This list of references cited by the applicant is for the reader's convenience only. It does not form part of the European patent document. Even though great care has been taken in compiling the references, errors or omissions cannot be excluded and the EPO disclaims all liability in this regard.