MICR - Magnetic Ink Characater Reader

In the world of treachery and deceit where each one is bent on compromising the resources of his fellow-mates, whether for personal gains or not, there arises an overarching demand to devise a system by which the authenticity of materials can be verified. In the digital domain we have introduced Biometrics and as if we that wasn't enough the stringent and unforgiving multi-factor authentication made its debut! On similar lines in the physical world the MICR (Magnetic Ink Character Recognition) vouches for the legitimacy of the paper documents. MICR codes are more often than not printed on bank cheques.

Working principle of device:

Ink or toner (containing iron oxide) that is susceptible to magnetic fields is used to print a given set of characters (usually in either of the two fonts; E-13B or CMC-7) on the paper. These characters serve to identify the paper document such as a cheque. These magnetic characters when subjected to magnetic fields reveal information that ordinary characters don't. This information is used to verify whether the document is legal or not. In case a document is photocopied or altered in any unscrupulous way the characters meant to convey the required information won't be able to do so as they cannot respond to the applied magnetic field or would supply erroneous or ditorted information. The selling point of this technology is that even if the characters are stained with stray marks the information stored within can still be extracted using a MICR reader. Unlike QR codes and barcodes we can read MICR codes.

The MICR code is first passed inside the MICR reader. This step magnetizes the ink so that the succeeding processes that utilize this magnetic field of the ink can take over. The MICR read head then processes every character. As the stream of characters pass by the head, they produce a wave form which is identified and processed into useful information.

It must be noted that the error rates of MICR are 1% or even less which makes them suitable for applications where accuracy is at prime.

Device Installation: Most readers can be attached via the USB port to the computer. Specialized drivers and pieces of software need to be obtained from the manufacturer and installed on the system.