Data storage on film

Why film?

We often get questions related to how and why we use film as a digital storage medium. Although film has been known as an analog medium for more than a century, piqlFilm is as digital as can be.


What is digital storage?

Digital storage is about writing binary data, i.e. 0’s and 1’s, to a physical storage medium. What kind of storage medium you decide to use, depends on variables such as your needs for data capacity, data lifetime, access and cost. Even cloud storage suppliers write your data as a string of 0’s and 1’s to a physical medium located in a data centre somewhere in the world.

Digital storage the Piql way

We use the same principle for piqlFilm. We write data as 0’s and 1’s to a physical storage medium, and they appear on the film as QR codes. Since our focus is on data security and ensuring long-term access and readability, we have chosen a storage medium that has unique capabilities for these purposes.

From a client perspective, the Piql workflow resembles cloud storage as we are fully IT integrated. The difference is that you can rest assured that your data is ultra-secure and readable at any point in the future with no need for maintenance.


“Perhaps the most significant strength is that the piqlFilm is an offline medium. And with 500-year longevity, meaning no need for migration, it sets Piql Services apart from any other physical storage medium for digital information.”
Norwegian Defence Research Establishment, “A risk assessment of the Piql Preservation Services”, June 2016