Photo ID is used in countless ways today, not just for the traditional identification cards like driver’s licenses and passports. Because of today’s more affordable photo ID printers, just about any company or organization can integrate photo identification into their operation and take advantage of the many benefits that photo IDs bring. Photo ID printers are now used by organizations such as schools, churches, and convention planners in addition to their traditional use in national security organizations, hospitals, airports and airlines.
Photo IDs for students
High schools, colleges, universities, and trade schools use photo IDs for students more than ever. Today there are even elementary schools that use photo ID systems. While some schools mostly focus on student and staff identification, others may want photo IDs with extra security features, or perks like the ability to use the IDs to check out library materials. They can also include meal tracking, cash-free purchases, and attendance keeping. At the university level, club and society memberships can be recorded on photo ID badges, as can access to sports facilities. Plastic ID card printers are a great investment for educational facilities due to their ability to allow much easier record keeping.
Churches and religious organizations use photo id card printers in their work in other countries, where photo ID is often necessary for aid workers. Some large religious conventions present security risks that can be more easily managed with the use of photo identification, and having an ID badge printer on hand can greatly simplify this task. The ID cards can also be customized to designate different groups of people, such as delegates, regular attendees, and speakers.
Religious conventions certainly aren’t the only conventions to make use of photo ID printers. Organizations of every type use ID badge printers to control convention access and to identify convention workers as well as exhibitors, press, visitors, and VIPs. These visitor management ID cards can be set up with smart chips or magnetic stripes for things like attendance tracking. Smaller, easily portable photo ID printers like the Pronto and Enduro models by Magicard ID printers are particularly handy for these applications.
While national security organizations and contractors have long used plastic ID card printers, today’s ID badge printers can incorporate functions onto cards that make them much more valuable. Credentials for fire, police, and emergency services can now hold large amounts of information as well as the photo, name, and badge numbers typical of older government ID numbers. There are enough different photo id card printer systems available today that meeting the needs of creating identification badges for different levels of security is easy, secure, and fast.
Hospitals, particularly large ones, require photo ID badges so that staff members will know that they are dealing with another staff member, and not an impostor. The photo ID badges used in hospitals, clinics, and other medical facilities must be of the highest quality, and must often have information encoded into magnetic stripes, watermarks, or bar codes for verification. Secure access to pharmacies, supply storage, and the various wards is necessary in today’s busy and complex healthcare environment. And new badge holders and ID accessories like badge reels let personnel swipe cards without the trouble of having to remove them.
Airlines, airports, and photo ID printers go together. Because of the number of security threats airports and airlines face, photo ID badges are only the starting point for positive identification of airport workers, from cleaning crews to pilots to security personnel. Photo IDs in airports must accommodate applications like providing access to secured areas, and today’s ID badge printers can add magnetic stripes or other security features like biometrics and RFID to hamper counterfeiting efforts.
Increasingly, corporations are using photo ID printers to create identification cards for workers, temps, and even visitors. They are finding that doing the job in-house has many advantages to outsourcing, such as decreased costs over time. ID badge printers such as the DTC550 printers allow corporations to make well-designed, aesthetically pleasing ID cards and badges for every application. By using security features like hologram laminates or Magicard’s HoloKote technology, these ID badge printers provide corporations with the means to make their own ID badges to their unique specifications.
Retail loyalty cards
Another application for photo ID printers is for retail loyalty cards. When issued and updated in-house using a photo ID printer, magnetic stripes and smart card technology can easily be used to keep track of customer data and things like reward points. Fitness clubs are starting to realize the benefits of photo ID technology too. Fitness clubs with loyalty programs tend to retain members better than clubs without such programs, and the simple investment in a photo id card printer can make ID cards that can keep track of promotional schemes and member referral programs. They can even track the popularity of various fitness classes to be able to tailor their offerings to the needs of the members.
Law enforcement is another sector that relies heavily on photo identification, and having photo ID printers in-house can save valuable municipal and state resources over time. With secure printers, hologram technology, biometrics, RFID, and flexible smart card encoding on ID cards, law enforcement agencies can provide the type of ID badges that are necessary not only for day-to-day work, but in crisis situations where multiple law enforcement and emergency responders must work together.
Other uses for ID badges
But believe it or not, these are not the only uses for photo ID printers. There are some new trends in photo ID technology that have nothing to do with customer or employee identification. Photo ID printers are also being used in applications such as tracking of elephants in Asia and research on dolphin populations.
Photo IDs for elephants in Asia are helping to monitor elephant survival rates and track movements of elephant populations. Because with Asian elephants, only males have tusks (Male and female African elephants have tusks.), male Asian elephants are major targets for poachers. With what are known as photographic capture-recapture studies, researchers photograph individual elephants, researchers were able in one study to photograph 2,400 individual elephants in the space of 80 days and record that the female to male ration was 4.33 to 1.
This photo ID application allows much more accurate monitoring of the demographics of male Asian elephants in an attempt to help conservationists monitor and try to prevent poaching. And in the event of poaching, the photo IDs can be used in identifying individual carcasses and aiding law enforcement. Also, by monitoring the movements of male elephants, farmers can do more to prevent crop raiding by the males and researchers can identify how many males are prone to crop raiding.
Likewise, photo identification cards for dolphins allows researchers to more accurately and easily track population size, migration routes and reproductive histories. Photo ID of dolphins uses photos of the animals’ dorsal fins, which have unique curves, nicks, and notches, as well as coloration patterns and scars. This is a non-invasive identification method that eliminates the need for tags and artificial markings on fins or “freeze branding,” which can injure dolphins and alter their behavior. With the increasing sophistication of and decreasing costs of photo id card printers, having a photo ID printer in the field is more affordable and convenient than ever before.
Photo ID printer technology is advancing in many ways, often as the cost of hardware drops, putting photo ID printers in places where they were impractical or too expensive to use before. Here are a few of the advances that are making today’s photo id card printers better than ever.
* The photos themselves can be much larger than before, making visual identification easier.
* Outstanding print quality. Even entry level ID badge printers have high definition technology.
* HDP holographic film. This is a security measure that is easily added to photo ID nowadays, and it is a great deterrent to counterfeiting, making fake IDs much easier to recognize.
Printing and encoding technological advances. Prices and features come in a much wider range than before, with options such as encoding, lamination, and one-sided or both-sided printing readily available. Photo ID printers are much easier to integrate into existing computer systems now than ever before.
Here are some of the options that are readily available on today’s ID badge printers and photo ID printers:
* Better ID cameras that make high quality color digital photos
* Magnetic stripe encoding – available on even entry level models
* USB connectivity – also becoming almost universally available
* Ethernet connectivity is available on higher end models
* Windows 2000 / 2003 / XP / and Vista compatibility is pretty much standard today
* Two to three year warranties are fairly standard too, with longer warranties on higher end photo ID printer models
* Two to three year print head guarantees are also becoming standard (with longer guarantees on higher end models, some with lifetime guarantees)
* Standard watermark designs are available on low to high end ID badge printers
* Custom watermark designs are available with higher end photo id card printers
* Clear, standard, and custom holographic lamination is available on higher end printers, as is UV film
* Print speeds range from roughly 25 to 35 seconds for non-laminated, full-color photo ID cards to 120 seconds for printers that laminate as well
* Monochrome print speeds can be as low as 6 seconds (with no laminating)
* Today’s photo ID printers can print on cards from 0.25 to 1.6 mm thick cards
* The photo ID printers themselves are as small as 7.6 x 9.2 x 14.5 inches in size and can weigh under 10 lbs (with entry level printers smaller and lighter)
Just a decade or so ago, photo ID cards – particularly those with smart card technology and other high tech touches – were not that common, and in many cases were more of a novelty item than a useful asset. However, now that photo id card printers are much more affordable and provide many more features, they are used in applications that were undreamed of before. Many corporations, retail businesses, government organizations, schools, churches, and even research projects are incorporating photo ID printers into their institutions. Doing in-house photo ID printing is reasonably priced, and the technology allows applications that will only grow as people find more creative uses for photo identification.