Asahi Kasei and TIS Begin Utilizing Akliteia™ Digital Platform for Art Authentication
September 24, 2024
Asahi Kasei Corp.
TIS Inc.
Asahi Kasei and TIS will begin utilizing their jointly established Akliteia™ digital anti-counterfeiting platform to authenticate artworks. The Shiko Munakata Authentication and Registration Committee, an authentication body for works by the artist Shiko Munakata, is the first organization to use Akliteia™ for art authentication.
Shiko Munakata was a world-renowned artist, and authenticity is assessed by the Shiko Munakata Authentication and Registration Committee, an authentication body mainly composed of his family members and specialized researchers.
Authentication of a work by Shiko Munakata
In the conventional authentication method, a paper certificate is affixed directly to the work each time an authentication is conducted. However, there have been cases where an artwork or a certificate was forged, or where a genuine certificate was removed from a genuine work and affixed to a counterfeit work. There are thus unresolved issues with the conventional method with respect to anti-counterfeiting and the risk of damage to works.
The provenance of a work is important for authentication and academic research, but it can become a significant workload to check the history of a work from a vast amount of data and materials to find out when it was authenticated in the past and by whom.
Reasons for Akliteia™ to be adopted by the Shiko Munakata Authentication and Registration Committee include the ability to verify the authentication details accurately while giving thorough consideration to protecting the artworks, the difficulty of counterfeiting the labels, and having a variety of options of size and color to avoid impinging on the artwork.
After authentication, the Shiko Munakata Authentication and Registration Committee will attach anti-counterfeit labels to the work, authentication certificate, and accessories (such as a scroll or a wooden box the work is stored in) in order to guarantee authenticity, register the authentication results on the blockchain, and record additional information such as the name of the authenticator, the date and time of the authentication, etc. in the Shiko Munakata Authentication and Registration Committee’s database.
The anti-counterfeit labels and authenticity determination devices permanently guarantee the authenticity of the work, authentication certificate, and accessories. By linking the results of the authentication on the blockchain with the database of the Shiko Munakata Authentication and Registration Committee, a person requesting authentication will be able to view the preserved authentication results at any time.
Scanning a label with an authenticity determination device
The patent application of the use of Akliteia™ for authentication of artworks has been filed jointly by the Shiko Munakata Authentication and Registration Committee, Ogata Law Office, and Asahi Kasei.
Use of Akliteia™ in an artwork authentication
Asahi Kasei and TIS aim to maintain the reliability of authentication and contribute to the preservation of valuable cultural assets by providing an accurate and secure platform for authentication organizations.
About Akliteia™
The Akliteia™ platform consists of the three elements of an anti-counterfeit label, a scanning device, and a blockchain, to ensure both authenticity and originality. The transparent anti-counterfeit label is manufactured using proprietary material and technology of Asahi Kasei, with special patterns printed in submicron resolution. With the anti-counterfeit label affixed to targeted products, it is possible to confirm the authenticity of a product at each point throughout the supply chain by scanning it with the device provided by Asahi Kasei. This also allows the number of genuine products to be tracked, while eliminating from the supply chain any counterfeits which may be discovered. Furthermore, the results of the scanning are recorded in the cloud service Akliteia™ Net which uses the Corda blockchain platform of TIS. With Akliteia™ Net, information regarding the occurrence of counterfeit products is shared across the supply chain, enabling quantification and visualization of contamination by counterfeit goods, including at what points they entered the supply chain. In addition, business privacy can be ensured by flexibly changing the scope of information sharing in response to changes in the supply chain.
About the Shiko Munakata Authentication and Registration Committee
The Shiko Munakata Authentication and Registration Committee was established with the aim of contributing to the recognition of Shiko Munakata’s artworks and the creation of a fair art market with authentication meetings mainly held by his family members and researchers having specialized knowledge. Being disturbed by the fact that counterfeit works were widespread, Shiko Munakata himself began performing authentication, and currently the authentication meetings continue to leverage the inherited knowledge, experience, materials, etc., on authentication.