Digital fingerprinting object authentication and anti-counterfeiting system

An apparatus comprising:

• a scanner arranged to acquire digital image data representing an image of at least a portion of a physical object;
• a digital processor coupled to the scanner to receive the digital image data;
• a memory accessible to the computer processor and storing an object feature template comprising data that specifies a class of objects, at least one authentication region for the class of objects, and at least one feature location in the authentication region for digital fingerprinting a object of the class of objects;
• the computer processor configured to execute instructions to—
• locate an authentication region of the scanned object based on accessing the stored object feature template;
• process the digital image data to select only image data corresponding to the located authentication region;
• in the selected image data, identify the object feature location based on the object feature template;
• extract an object feature from the image data at the identified object feature location;
• and
• store the extracted object feature as part of a digital fingerprint to identify the object without storing the acquired digital image data.