I’m not providing a source - this was all well-known by the mid-90’s,

The citation needed is not for what you’ve said here, but for the claim that ALL printers do it without exceptions, despite lack of regulations requiring them to do so.

some of us were there and experimented to try to get around it.

Did you witness any Oki printers using stego? Note Oki printers are no longer on the US market, but when they were I regarded them as the most ethical of all options. To date I’ve seen no one catch Oki doing stego.

It’s a criminal offense to posses equipment that can counterfeit banknotes.

I’ll have a look at that directive¹ when I get a chance but I have to wonder if it’s then illegal to write your own FOSS f/w for a printer which has no proactive measures -- which you would need to do in order to escape the tyranny of manufacturer ink shenanigans and anti-features.

The quality of most consumer printers is insufficient for counterfiets to begin with, but most certainly they aren’t going to handle the holograms.

¹ strange that it would be a directive considering the EU has exclusive competency over the euro.
(update)

Unless you are doing scientific analysis, it’s hard to find much less measure. You know it’s there, print a ‘blank’ page take a picture and upload an image of the dots.

The dots show up easily under a blacklight or blue LED. Which means if you are creating artwork for a blacklit party venue, the noise ruins the artwork.

Update

I had a look at EU Directive 2014/62. This seems to be the relavent bit:

Article 3 - Offences

1. Member States shall take the necessary measures to ensure that the following conduct is punishable as a criminal offence, when committed intentionally:
   (a) any fraudulent making or altering of currency, whatever means are employed;
   (b) the fraudulent uttering of counterfeit currency;
   (c) the import, export, transport, receiving or obtaining of counterfeit currency with a view to uttering the same and with knowledge that it is counterfeit;
   (d) the fraudulent making, receiving, obtaining or possession of
   (i) instruments, articles, computer programs and data, and any other means peculiarly adapted for the counterfeiting or altering of currency; or
   (ii) security features, such as holograms, watermarks or other components of currency which serve to protect against counterfeiting.

I do not interpret anything there as requiring printer makers to pro-actively produce tracker dots.

Note the law thread is here.