Everything to Include on Your Organization’s ID Cards

Identity has always been a very personal matter for our individual existence. Apart from running into your occasional doppelganger, every person is a unique creation and identifying them is an important matter. So what exactly should go on an organizational ID? How personal should it get? In the end, it really boils down to function and design. Once you have decided what you want to achieve with organizational ID cards and how you want them to look, it’s just a matter of selecting the right data points. Choose too few and you might not have a secure system that is difficult to replicate. Choose too many and you’ve publicly displayed your employee’s personal data for all the world to see. Find the goldilocks zone that is just right and then you’ve got an effective and secure ID solution for all to enjoy. So let’s break down the data.

Personal ID Information

There are nearly a dozen personal identifiers that you can choose from when putting together your organization’s ID solution. They start with the obvious, such as full name, and can carry on to the deeply personal such as height, weight, and sex. Where security matters most, it might seem like an obvious answer to include the more deeply personal traits. However, ask yourself if you really want to have your employees display their weight publicly for all to see? Moreover, when Marge from accounting actually completes her New Year’s resolution, do you really want to have to print a new ID to reflect a 50lb weight loss?

The truth of the matter is that the average security guard is not going to be able to tell the difference between a person who is 5 foot 10 inches and a person who is 6 foot even. We’d also recommend the security guard not question a woman and ask her if she is really only 135 pounds, because she seems heavier. In our opinion, there are simply better ways to ensure security without violating a person’s personal sense of self-esteem. As for the other data points, information such as job title, department, ID number, date of hire, expiration date, security clearance and emergency contacts are all available to you and a little more benign.

Deciding the Level of Security

As we mentioned, there are easier ways to ensure an ID is legit without weight or height shaming your employees. Having a clear and crisp image that allows for quick and accurate facial recognition is a great start. Printers like the Fargo HDP5000 offer vibrant images printed in HD that are protected by a durable layer of HDP film between the card image and the outside world. This is a great start and allows you an initial level of protection while protecting your IDs from wear and tear. However, the rabbit hole of security goes further with more advanced printing.

An advanced model of the Fargo HDP5000 actual comes with dual sided lamination capabilities. This printer allows you to apply a holographic overlaminate or holographic HDP film on both sides of the card. This makes the cards extremely difficult to tamper with or counterfeit. That enhanced security feature will take you much further than turning the security checkpoint into a carnival game where they guess your height and weight. Moreover, you can add a barcode, magnetic stripe, personal signature, smartcard and even a fingerprint if you want with most printers. Just decide how secure you want your cards to be and we have the technology that allows you to make it happen.

A Beautiful ID Card that Lasts

Once you have selected your data points and the level of security required, all that is left is to select the branding and imagery that leaves you with a beautiful and secure ID solution. We offer a host of ID card software that will help walk you through the process and assist you in creating vibrant images that pop. It can be a little overwhelming to decide the right package for you and that’s why we offer elite customer service support to walk you through the process.

For over a decade now, we’ve been trusted to provide the secure ID solution for some of the largest healthcare, academic, and government organizations in the country. We know what matters most and we can match you and your organization with the perfect solution. So reach out to us and don’t forget to check out the full range of ID solutions we offer here at IDSecurityOnline.