IDENTIFYING AND ENSURING THE AUTHENTICITY OF OBJECTS

Identifying and ensuring object authenticity can occur by identifying an object by acquiring an image of the object, identifying flaws present in or on the object, associating the flaws with respective locations or regions in the image, determining a quality score indicating a condition of the object based at least upon an analysis of the identified flaws, and generating and storing a data record with all of this identifying information. A tag which provides an identifier that links the object to the data record is placed on the object. When authenticity of the object needs to be verified at a later time, the tag identifier is retrieved and used to retrieve the data record. The identifying information can then be compared with the object as it currently appears. If the object as it currently appears corresponds with the identifying information, authenticity is verified. Otherwise, fraud can be suspected.