The identification card is often perceived as a tool to enhance one’s trust and confidence in a person. This article presents an overview covering multifunction electronic ID credentials.
ID credential system
It is common knowledge that an identification card (ID) and a credential card are two different objects. As stated in the dictionary: an ID is proof of one's identity, as a document, whilst credential is that which entitles one to confidence, credit or authority.
History
History records that the first use of a photo ID badge was in the early 1840s when the New York Police Department used a French-developed photographic process to take photographs and record inmates on record cards. The photographic ID process worked fine, but the classification was limited until the late 1800s when a methodology was developed to classify and register the photographs.
The photographic ID methods stayed pretty much the same until after WW II when Polaroid produced a fast-developing film that made the production of the photo ID a faster and more convenient process.
Although Kodak entered the photo ID field, with a competitive fast-developing film in the 1970s, not much happened in ID processing until the electronic video printer was developed in the early 1980s.
Early video printers by Polaroid and Sony printed on thermograph (thermo) paper. When connected to a video camera and image storage computer, the set-up was capable of becoming a photo ID badging station. This type of video set-up was used to electronically store and produce early single-purpose photo ID cards. Later, text with company logo and name, employee name and number, were added to the photo field, thus the ID card became a credential card.
The development of laser printers in the mid-1980s allowed for production of high-quality, long-lasting (5-year goal) black and white ID credential cards. Affordable colour video printers became available in the late '80s, thereby opening the door for colour ID badges.
During the time the video printer was being developed, the personal computer was undergoing improvements in speed and hard drive capacity, and techniques were improving to store images on a computer.
The multifunction ID credential
The multifunction electronic ID credential card is one that could be used in more than one functional system with global applications. Today, for the most part, systems in security, medical and financial are isolated, segregated and separate cards are used in each field.
The currently accepted global technology is the high-energy (4000 oersted) 8-track magnetic (mag) stripe card. The current international on-line standard for the mag stripe card is 4 tracks. 1 through 4 common uses includes track 1 for banking, track 2 for security and track 3 and 4 for open usage. Tracks 7 and 8 are used for off-line operations. The mag stripe card can only store a small amount of information equivalent to 200 alphanumeric bits.
The mag stripe card has a great potential of being a multifunctional data card, due to its global acceptance, but its limited storage capacity prevents it from becoming a multifunctional card that stores images.
The widely used barcode is one-dimensional and referred to as 1-D. This 1-D barcode is a series of parallel bars of different width typically used for inventory control, tracking, and some security and parking ID applications. The advantages of 1-D bar codes are its low-cost, availability and acceptability. There are more than a dozen different bar code styles that, as a whole, add security to the 1D usage.
Furthermore, technology advancements have provided a new enhanced bar code methodology known as 2-dimensional (2D). This card can currently be produced on a typical laser printer. Additionally, with further suppression techniques of the video image, the card has the capability to store a photo.
Since the late '80s there has been an explosion of video ID badging systems making combination photo ID and access control cards. Vinyl lamination of ID badges was the standard production method until the early '90s when direct printing on PVC plastic-dye sublimation printers became available.
Smartcards
Smartcards may be anything from prior technology through today's high-density magnetic stripe, 1D or 2D bar code, or magnetic chips embedded within the card with low storage or state-of-the-art very large-scale integration capacity, to state-of-the-art electronic chip cards or keys, optic memory cards and hologram cards.
The advantage of the interactive smartcard is that it is a user-friendly portable processor. However, current available technology limits the capacity of electronic chip card's capability that would make it difficult to store many or complex images.
The greatest opportunity for a multifunctional smartcard is that it is capable of working with all known ID and credential systems globally. As researched, the optical memory laser card has the potential of being the base product for a true global electronic ID credential.
Most so-called 'smart' cards are passive stored value cards (SVC) where the card initially has a financial value that decreases with each card use. In this way the stored value card is a debit card except the funds have been paid for in advance. This means that funds have been transferred within the card technology in conjunction with a fund deposit at a financial institution.
One available optical memory card is capable of storing 4,1 Mbytes (MB) of information allowing for the storage of more than 20 photographs, software, digitised text, graphics, sound, photographs, biometrics and medical images, or 1200 pages of text. They provide a basis for a true multifunctional or multi-purpose ID credential card. The laser card is reliable, unaffected by magnetic or electro-static fields or water, and has expanding usage in health, security, access control and publishing. This technology provides a condensed written and imaging, general storage device capable of handling multitransactions.
For further details contact Mr ID on tel: (011) 907 6913.
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