Method and device for checking a security element

An apparatus for checking a security element of a security document, the apparatus comprising:

• at least one electric excitation field generator;
• at least one image capture device;
• and
• at least one hardware processor configured as an evaluation device;
• wherein by way of said generator for generating the electric excitation field, the electric excitation field being generated and applied to the security element;
• wherein by way of said image capture device, an optical image of at least one region of the security element after or during a generation of the electric excitation field can be generated;
• wherein by way of said evaluation device, local intensity maxima in the optical image are detected, a local intensity maximum designating image points or an image region containing a plurality of the image points in the optical image, the security element being verified by way of said evaluator if a number of the local intensity maxima present at different image positions is greater than or equal to a predetermined number, the number being at least two, wherein:
• a spatial size of a region of the local intensity maxima is determined, with the spatial size being the number of contiguous image points of an image region that forms a local intensity maximum, and the security element is verified if predetermined size properties are satisfied.