EnigmaTAG Interview Transcript
At the Gadget Show Live 2010 in Birmingham, our team caught up with Clive Smith from EnigmaTAG who gave us a demo of their advanced tagging technology.
Here is a transcript of our feature on EnigmaTAG, which has been featured on the Gadget Show as Crimestoppers Gel.
Listen to our FrequencyCast Special from Gadget Show Live 2010 Our interview with Clive Smith from EnigmaTAG starts 21 minutes into the show |
EnigmaTAG Interview Transcript:
Carl:
Right, I'm talking to a very handsome fella called Clive from EnigmaTAG, and I've heard he's a shameless advertiser, but I don't believe a word of it.
Clive:
No no, my name's Clive, and it's www.enigmatag.com, thank you.
Carl:
Obviously not shameless. I've noticed you've got a lovely packet of nail varnish here, I was just wondering, should I buy one? - I'm not entirely sure I need it.
Clive:
If that's your inclination, then by all means ...
Carl:
Will I look as pretty as you?
Clive:
Well, this has a lot more serious ramifications actually, it's been devised to be a consumer champion for helping protect valuables, gadgets, in the home and out of the home, because one of the biggest issues we've got now is mobile phones and muggings, where they're being stolen.
Carl:
So this is actually quite a serious product, isn't it?
Clive:
Yeah, but behind all the joking of it, is that yes, it is a serious ... burglary, protection against theft, and it's been designed by police, and we've worked with the police to help design this, so that it meets their criteria as a detection tool that is admissible in court with the Crime Prosecution Service. That's quite a serious point, which doesn't come across heavily, because quite frankly, consumers just want to know that it does what it says on the pack, which is, it's a property protector.
Carl:
OK, so I'm going to ask you in a minute how this works, because I remember the very first property protector I got was one of those ultraviolet marker pens, you used to write your postcode on it. So do you do the same with this? - is this write your postcode on it?
Clive:
Well, no no, and to be quite frank, putting an ultraviolet pen onto an item, and writing your postcode, is one means of doing it - not very sophisticated, and becomes fairly obvious, and can be washed off with a solvent. What we have here is some advanced technology that's come out as a result of a technology that was developed for munitions marking, which uses microparticles.
Carl:
Wow, so that sounds really sophisticated. So how does this work?
Clive:
Well, the microparticles that we use were devised and developed to survive 4,000 degrees of temperature in an explosion, for munitions marking, so it's a very resilient technology. So the first thing is, we've got something that will survive and will withstand, and it will last a lifetime.
Carl:
OK, so how do I apply it to my sacred items?
Clive:
Well, the simple element, as you describe, the nail varnish bottle, is one of the reasons for using a nail varnish bottle was to keep the consumer value and the cost as low as possible, so we used an existing bottle which had a brush applicator, which is a nail varnish bottle.
Carl:
Fantastic, so I can look good in the evening, and everyone will know who I am, well at least what my number is.
Clive:
That's entirely up to you, but the serious point about this, the microparticles have five layers of colour, and they're actually less than ten microns per layer of colour, so it's 50 microns that we're talking about, so it's less than the size of your hair, so it's fairly invisible to the naked eye, and that's important, because this is about doing a clever, covert mark, but we were after something, because we're all lazy about filling out registration forms, that you could quite frankly take your nail varnish bottle with its brush applicator, and dab a one millimetre diameter spot in a cover position, on the back of, on the underside, within the battery compartment, of your gadget, or on your antiques, and we devised it so that what you have is effectively a carrier for the microparticles, which is a glue-like substance, so it's very firm in the way that it adheres to surfaces, better on slightly grainy surfaces, not highly polished, but it clings and it adheres to the product.
Carl:
So this can be used on your jewellery, your electronics. Does it burn into anything? - because some solvents will actually burn into the plastics and things like that?
Clive:
No, this has been devised almost with a very firm glue, and the important thing was to ensure that we didn't damage valuable antiques, jewellery, as well as the gadgets, but it also had to be something that could be applied to all manner of woods, plastics, metals, and therefore what we were after is, one, the microparticles, and the means of actually adhering them to an item.
Carl:
Let me get this right: my laptop's been stolen, I've marked it up with your product - how do I read it? - how do I get it back? Do I get it back? Can I guarantee convictions? What happens then?
Clive:
Well, this EnigmaTAG property protector has been devised to provide the tool for police to be able to get an identification and that code, from microparticles that they read, back to the bottle that you apply to your individual item, and providing you've registered that code to your name and address, there is a very high chance you'll get those goods returned, and that was the key aspect here, and we didn't use our own database and build from scratch, we've gone with one of the largest databases in the world, which is called Immobilise.
Carl:
Right, fantastic, so this is, what - an annual subscription, or - how do I get on to the actual database?
Clive:
No, one of the elements with this whole conception of the product was to be a consumer champion product, to provide value for money, and this is a buy once, protect forever, product, there are no registration fees or further costs, once you've paid £29.99 for this product.
Carl:
That's actually quite refreshing, isn't it? And it's always good to know you don't have to re-register all the time, and all these annual fees.
Clive:
Well, the key aspect to this as a product was to ensure, before we released this on the market, we've had five years in research and development, and we worked with police forces where we have convictions, and one of the aspects was to get a conviction which was solely on the evidence of this property marker to gain a conviction against a criminal, because then you, as a consumer, can have reassurance that this technology does work.
Carl:
So one other thing, in the packet comes a torch - what do I use that for?
Clive:
The purpose of putting the torch in is all police now are issued within their custody suites with UV lights, some police officers carry a UV torch. This is to provide you with a UV keyfob in a handy manner, so when you make an application of the mark, you can actually look at it under your UV keyfob, so you can see where you've marked the product.
Carl:
So let me just check - this is only £29.99, and how many products can I cover with this?
Clive:
Right, we actually say in the instructions that you can get over 120 marks from a bottle, you're looking at less than 20, 22, 23 pence a mark, but quite frankly, I'd be surprised if you weren't able to get over 200 marks out of this.
Carl:
Excellent, thanks very much for your time.
Clive:
Alright, well Carl, I'd just like to say on behalf of EnigmaTag.com, we'd like to present you with our nail varnish bottle, so that you may have the comfort of being protected forever, or if you wish to wear it on your nails, well then maybe we should be calling you Carly.
Carl:
Thank you very much. Have you got any lipstick to match? - oh, it's gone.
Pete:
So that's the EnigmaTAG, pictures of the bottle in question are up on our show notes.
OFFER: To get £8 off, FrequencyCast listeners can use the following code at the checkout: EGSL15 - Order online at www.enigmatag.com
Listen to our FrequencyCast Special from Gadget Show Live 2010 Our interview with Clive Smith from EnigmaTAG starts 21 minutes into the show |
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