A Latino community group in Asbury Park, New Jersey, is building a new ID card program in an effort to improve communications with emergency service providers. The cards are not considered official documents, but include each resident's name, photo, birth date, address, and phone number. For those who speak very little English, the cards will also include the phone number of a friend who can help translate for police when Spanish-speaking officers are not available.

HID Global, a worldwide leader in ID card printers, announced yesterday at ISC West 2008 that it would be adding a line of ID card accessories to its current offerings.

ID card accessories aren't the only thing world identification leader HID had up its sleeve this week at ISC west - the worldwide leader in card production also unveiled a new ID card system involving its newest and most advanced printer - the HDP5000. Based around the HDP5000's High Definition Printing (HDP) technology, Fargo's HDP5000 Card Identity System promises to be a comprehensive and secure card printing solution that prints only the highest quality cards.

Ithaca College has begun installation of a new access control system for residence halls. The new system will require students to use their ID cards, rather than keys, to enter buildings. Special key card access boxes on the outer doors of residence halls will read the student IDs to grant access.

Last year, we reported on a Registered Traveler program, a brainchild of the Transportation Safety Administration, which is designed to expedite the security screening process for frequent business travelers. This week, the American Association of Airline Executives has announced that the program, since its inception in 2007, has recently received the paperwork for the 100,000th enrollment.

Laundry can be low on the priority list for many college students, with students quoting pressing food and video game issues that supersede clean clothes - but now Drury University students have no excuses for their dirty laundy. New ID card readers on the school's washing machines and dryers in their laundry facilities were recently installed to streamline the laundry payment process.

The Department of Defense is making improvements to its ID card program in order to meet the requirements of Homeland Security Presidential Directive 12. HSPD-12 calls for new personal identification verification (PIV) cards to be issued to all military and civilian employees working for the DoD. The enhanced PIV cards will use contactless card technology to provide physical and logical access to facilities as well as computer systems.

In an effort to build multiple functions into a single ID card, the Washington DC city government has unveiled the “One Card.” The photo ID serves as a resident's ID card, while also allowing the holder to access public services at locations such as libraries, pools, and parks. Additionally, the card can function as a student ID, and there are plans to integrate the One Card into the Metro public transportation system. It will also be used as an access card for DC government buildings and programs.

Armed guards at secure buildings weren't enough for LaSalle county, IL administrators - a recent decision has made it so that every coutny employee in the county's courthouse will be required to wear an ID badge and lanyard at all times during work hours. Members of the Courthouse and Jail committee designed the policy in February, and while the kinks of the program are still being ironed out, county employees can expect to have their ID photos soon.

Valparaiso University is ending daytime open access to its dormitories and plans on setting up a card-based access control system by this summer or the start of the next school year. The new system will require student ID cards to open all residence hall entrances.

The days of simply showing student ID cards to attendants at Middle Tennessee State University's rec center are over. Under a new ID card program aimed at higher security, upwards of 23,000 MTSU students are required to trade in their current ID cards, which simply had magnetic stripes, for new Blue ID Cards, which enable biometric featuers in order to ensure higher security.

In Singapore, a new ID card program is about to launch that aims to protect those suffering from dementia. The cards will be distributed to dementia patients so that members of the public can contact the patient's family if he or she found lost or wandering around.

Central Florida Regional Hospital has recently initiated a new series of more rigorous security measures and checks after an attempted baby-napping last month. On March 28th, a one-year old boy was taken from the post-partum ward of the hospital by an unidentified (and unauthorized visitor). Thankfully, the child was found and the kidnapper apprehended just an hour later, but the hospital had a wakeup call that their security was lacking and needed a major revamp.