A team of physicists in Italy have developed a watermarking scheme that embeds an encrypted hologram into a digital photo.

A press release indicates that the hologram "will help newspapers and magazines check celebrity pictures that might have been doctored to make them more newsworthy, and prevent hackers from tampering with sensitive legal images including fingerprint records and medical scans used as evidence in court."

A description of the technology is available in a downloadable PDF from the Institute of Physics web site. The PDF is a free download until mid-July 2005 (registration required).