With ID cards, you can protect every corner of your business’ facilities. Maximizing the effectiveness of your company’s ID cards requires you to choose the right security features. But which ID card security features are best for your organization? To help you decide, we will show you everything that you need to know beforehand.
ID card design
Colour vs black and white
Although it may seem like an aesthetic choice at first, deciding between colour and black and white is actually one of the most important ID card decisions that you will make. Colour makes it much easier to quickly identify the details of an ID card. You can also use colour coding to distinguish between different groups of people. Our favourite ways to use colour coded ID cards are to identify visitors and to manage security clearance levels.
Single sided versus double sided
Trying to squeeze a large amount of data onto one side of an ID card can make it difficult to read; this nullifies its primary purpose. For organizations that plan on including more than a name and job title on an ID card, we always recommend going with double-sided ID cards.
Photo ID cards vs text only ID cards
The best way to ensure that someone holding an ID card is who they say that they are is to add a photo to the card. With this, your security team can verify people with a quick glance — this is especially important for large organizations wherein everyone isn’t familiar with one another. Using a photo ID card also has customer service benefits, as a smiling photograph can make a customer service representative seem much friendlier.
ID card technology
Visual security only
Visual ID card security is the most limited technology that you can choose. Although it can be helpful, it relies solely on the flawed limitations of human perception. This could lead to someone accessing assets and areas that are highly restricted. However, visual ID card security does allow your security team to recognize where someone should and should not be. It is for these reasons that we always recommend using visual security for a card, but only in conjunction with other security technologies.
Magnetic stripe security
This has been a powerful ID card security technology for decades. With this, access points can be protected without having to station security everywhere. It is also easy to revoke access to an ID card secured by magnetic stripe technology — as opposed to a key, which would require changing locks and redistributing keys to everyone with authorized access. One of our favourite capabilities of magnetic stripe technology is the ability to encode unique account data. This means that someone can see an employee’s full profile with a single swipe.
RFID security
RFID technology can do everything that magnetic stripe technology can to do secure your ID cards. As an added bonus, RFID technology emits short-range radio waves to make reading a card easier. An RFID card is also much more difficult to duplicate, further enhancing security.
Smart chip security
When embedded into your ID cards, smart chips present the same security benefits as RFID and magnetic stripe technology. In addition, a smart chip ID card has a computerized data encryption. Because of this, it is the most secure ID card technology that you can choose.
Which ID card security features are best for your organization?
Now that you have a more complete knowledge of ID card security features, you can make the best choices for your organization’s needs. To learn more about ID card security, feel free to contact us.