<![CDATA[Digital academic certificates require protection against unauthorized manipulation while preserving their visual appearance. This study evaluates Bit Plane Complexity Segmentation (BPCS) as a covert identity-data embedding layer for certificate images. The MATLAB implementation converts Pure Binary Code to Canonical Gray Code, partitions bit-planes into 8 × 8 blocks, and embeds payloads in regions whose complexity exceeds a selected threshold. Performance was assessed through threshold sensitivity, payload scaling, grayscale and RGB comparison, a 40,000-bit large-payload feasibility test, consistency across five genuine certificate images, and robustness under common image manipulations. Under pristine lossless conditions, the tested payloads were recovered exactly and stego-image quality remained high, with PSNR values from 68.53 to 84.49 dB. On five genuine certificates, mean PSNR was 83.46 dB with a standard deviation of 0.63 dB. Embedding capacity declined sharply when the complexity threshold exceeded 0.5, while RGB offered additional theoretical capacity. However, resizing, cropping, rotation, noise, blur, and brightness changes produced substantial bit errors or extraction failure. The results therefore support BPCS as a high-capacity, low-distortion data-hiding layer for controlled lossless certificate workflows, but not as a standalone authentication or manipulation-robust security mechanism.]]>
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