The watermarking system uses a first series of parameters, the private key, for the insertion of the watermark, and a second series of parameters, the public key, for the detection of the watermark, so that knowledge of the public key does not make it possible to know the private key and does not make it possible to delete or modify the watermark. The insertion of the watermark is performed by adding a pseudo random noise sequence, filtered by a filter with impulse response, to the data to be watermarked. The detection of the watermark is performed by searching through the data received for whether they contain noise which has been filtered by a filter with predefined spectral response. Application to copy protection.