Detect tampered and deepfake Prescription

What a genuine prescription contains

A prescription names a prescriber, a patient, and a medicine precisely enough to be dispensed once. It carries the prescriber's name, qualification, clinic address, council registration number and, for controlled medicines, a separate licence number. Then the patient's name, age, and where dosing depends on it, weight. The date of issue follows, then the body: drug name, strength, dosage form, the directions covering dose, route, frequency and duration, the quantity, and the refills authorised. It closes with the prescriber's signature and the clinic stamp, on serialised security paper where the schedule requires it.

The directions and the quantity are arithmetic. One tablet twice daily for seven days is fourteen units, so a quantity of ninety on that line is not a dosing decision but an inconsistency. The drug's schedule decides whether refills are permitted at all and how many, which means a refill count can contradict the medicine named two lines above it. The date sets a validity window that expires. On controlled forms the serial number ties one physical sheet to one prescriber, and the quantity is written in figures and in words so that neither can be altered alone.

How prescription forgeries are made

• Quantity and refill inflation

  A digit is added to the quantity or a refill count is written onto a line that authorised none, which is the core of prescription diversion. On a handwritten script the added stroke differs in ink density and pen pressure from the characters beside it; on a printed one, the patched region separates cleanly from its neighbours.

• Drug and strength substitution

  The medicine or its strength is overwritten, typically stepping up to a higher schedule while keeping the rest of a genuine script intact. The substituted name rarely matches the original's character spacing, and it often leaves directions and a quantity that belong to the medicine it replaced.

• Borrowed prescriber registration numbers

  A practising doctor's name and registration number are used on a script they never wrote, so a register lookup succeeds. The pairing is what fails: the clinic address, the specialty, and the signature all have to match one prescriber, and a borrowed number usually agrees with only some of them.

• Typed overlay on a handwritten script

  A line is set in type and laid over handwriting, or the reverse, to make an alteration look like part of the original. Handwritten ink and printed toner have distinct edge profiles and distinct interactions with paper fibre, and the two do not mix silently on a scan.

• Photocopied and cloned prescription pads

  Blank pads are photocopied or reproduced, carrying a real clinic's letterhead and sometimes a duplicated serial number. Security paper features such as void pantographs and microprint are what fail first, since both are designed to degrade through exactly this kind of reproduction.

• Date resets for repeat presentation

  One genuine script is presented at several pharmacies with the date changed each time, so each dispensing looks like the first. The altered date field carries a different print profile from the rest of the line, and the serial number on a controlled form stays constant across every presentation.

What TamperCheck checks on a prescription

TamperCheck runs 200+ forensic checks across three layers and returns a risk score from 0 to 100 with plain-English findings tied to specific regions of the document. These three carry the most weight on this document class.

• Stamp authenticity and placement

  Stamps are assessed for whether the ink was impressed onto the page or printed as part of it, and for whether the impression was placed digitally after the fact.

• Date and validity consistency

  Issue, expiry, and period dates are checked against one another and against the file's own creation metadata, which catches backdating and validity extension.

• Reference and document number checks

  Document, account, and reference numbers are checked for issuer format conformance and against every other place the same value appears on the page.

• And many more checks

  The three above are the layers that carry the most weight on a prescription. Every upload runs the full suite of 200+ checks regardless of document class, spanning file structure and metadata, pixel-level forensics, font and text rendering, optical and print characteristics, provenance signals, AI-generation signatures, and many more checks.

Who verifies a prescription, and why

Pharmacies and clinical services preventing controlled substance diversion. In each case the document is being used to unlock money, access, or a legal status, which is exactly what makes it worth forging.

How to verify a prescription in 4 steps

1. 1

   Check the directions against the quantity

   Work the arithmetic on the script itself: dose multiplied by frequency multiplied by duration should equal the quantity written. On a controlled form, confirm the quantity in figures matches the quantity in words, and that the refills authorised are permitted for that medicine's schedule.

2. 2

   Verify the prescriber against the register

   Look up the registration number on the medical council register and confirm it resolves to the named prescriber, the specialty the script implies, and the clinic address on the letterhead. For controlled medicines, confirm the separate licence number is current.

3. 3

   Call the clinic on a number you looked up yourself

   Contact the prescribing clinic to confirm the script was issued, using a phone number obtained independently rather than the one printed on the document. A cloned pad carries a cloned contact number, and calling it confirms nothing.

4. 4

   Run a forensic check on the scan

   A typed overlay or a single altered digit can be clean enough to pass at the counter. TamperCheck runs 200+ forensic checks on a prescription image and returns a risk score from 0 to 100 within seconds, with findings tied to the region of the script that was altered.

Frequently asked questions