mere process of giving somebody a security token u2014 be it an identification document usb token proximity card their fingerprint etc u2014 weakens the security of the system we believe that using digital watermarks is inherently a more secure method for secure access because digital watermarks can be covert and they can hide in any document now consider our security enhancements using the fig1 system as an example environment a document e g document 12 is steganographically encoded to include a payload having access information the term u201c access information u201d is broadly used in this patent document and generally refers to information which can be used to access or to determine whether access should be granted a secure location a secure location may refer to a physical area a network resource a computer file or folder a software application or computing device etc access information may provide a key code and or data to allow or determine whether to allow such access access information may be carried by a steganographic payload e g a digital watermark payload or can be stored in a data record and accessed with an identifier e g carried by a steganographic payload sometimes access information may include a decryption key and access is allowed when the decryption key is used to successfully decrypt predetermined information or access information may including information which can be compared to information or samples provided by a user or information retrieved using the access information in one implementation a steganographically.