Anti-counterfeit features for Olympic tickets

Each ticket will be printed with a hologram, a barcode and name of the booker as well as other security features to reduce counterfeiting, meaning that every ticket can be traced to the person who bought it.

A Locog spokesperson said displaying names on tickets was a central approach to reduce counterfeiting, but it would be inappropriate to comment further on the measures.

Locog warned today that tickets should only be bought from authorised sources such as the tickets.london2012.com website. 

The Olympic organiser has set up an Olympic ticketing website checker, which allows consumers to enter a URL to confirm if a website offering tickets is an official authorised ticket reseller.

In March Event revealed that at least 40 websites have been reported to Locog as selling fake or unauthorised tickets online.

Nick Downing, detective superintendent at Operation Podium, the Metropolitan Police’s Olympic unit, said: "Genuine tickets will have a number of security features built into them to minimise the risk of counterfeits.

"The safest way to ensure that your ticket is genuine is to only buy from an authorised seller which can be found on the London 2012 website. If you buy from an unofficial site, you risk paying over the odds for a ticket that may not exist, may not be genuine and you risk not getting to see the Games. Your personal details could even be used in other crimes."  

Paul Deighton, chief executive of Locog, said: "It is important now that people keep their tickets in a safe place ready for Games time and also to be wary of websites and organisations claiming to have Games tickets to sell. In many cases, they simply do not have them to sell and there is a real danger people will end up being out of pocket and missing out on seeing the Games."

One million Paralympic tickets went on sale yesterday and Olympic and Paralympic tickets will begin to be delivered this week.

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