It's my understanding that the secret service requested (required?) that the printer manufacturers start adding the dots once the printers got good enough to easily recreate paper bills. Because they are primarily a tool for tracking counterfeiters, they are not needed with black a white printers and thus are not included.
The tracking dots aren't for anti-counterfeiting. The secret service has a separate chunk of code in every color printer that detects if you are printing money and prints out a page that says essentially, "you can't do that." (at least that was the case 20 years ago when I worked for HP).
The tracking dots are used by the FBI if someone prints out classified information and passes it around, or other copyrighted/illegal documents.
The EURion constellation[0] is how that detection mostly works as I understand it. Neat bit of tech. It's real obvious on euro bills once you know what to look for. Fun fact: not all printers give a hoot about this pattern, so it's a neat trick to annoy people with if your printer doesn't.
mostly, the software in printers/scanners and Adobe's Photoshop alikes is looking out for the "EURion" pattern.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EURion_constellation
That is not to be confused with (dynamical) and non-visible tracking info on printed sheets, which in fact can have everything coded in. By that, even 1-bit printouts can be identified up to the source. If the printer model and #salt is printed alongside, the prosecution has evidence for the cases the printer involved.