Magicard HoloPatch cards are a unique card technology for exclusive use with Magicard printers. All Magicard printers come with the built-in HoloKote system that adds a secure watermark across the face of every ID card printed. HoloPatch cards are designed to provide an additional measure of security for ID cards printed using Magicard printers.

Additional security at no extra cost? Sounds too good to be true, but with the brand new Magicard Rio Pro ID card printer and the built-in HoloKote secure watermark system it’s possible. HoloKote comes standard with all Magicard printers and protects your ID cards and badges from counterfeiting and tampering with a simple step that is already included in the printing process.

Magicard HoloPatch cards are a unique card technology for exclusive use with Magicard printers. All Magicard printers come with the built-in HoloKote system that adds a secure watermark across the face of every ID card printed. HoloPatch cards are designed to provide an additional measure of security for ID cards printed using Magicard printers.

Northern Michigan University recently upgraded their security systems in residence halls with a new card access system that links student access to their Wildcat Express student ID cards. The university decided to implement the new system to increase efficiency and security for the on campus buildings. Using student IDs as access cards makes it easier for university officials to manage the locking system for exterior doors to the residence halls.

In response to increasing security risks, hospitals are implementing programs that make it easier to identify who is walking through their doors. With more than 4,000 visitors everyday, hospitals in the Cottage Health system in California are taking extra security precautions and employing a visitor identification badge system.

At a conference to discuss school violence, Pennsylvania State Police Commissioner Jeffrey Miller told a group of educators around the state the straight truth - violence is curbed through being prepared.

A 500 year flood is currently flowing through Iowa and much of the upper Midwest, wreaking havoc in small towns and large cities alike. As families begin to piece their lives back together, it's inevitable that construction or utility workers will be present at the scene. Iowa's Attorney General, Tom Miller, has issued a press release warning Iowans to always check for ID when utility workers come to call, warning that impostors and identity thieves often prey on unknowing homeowners during emergency situations.

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.

For companies looking to hire a new employee, the process is often the same. First the resumes, then the interviews and narrowing down of the potential candidates. The last step could possibly be the most important one - the background check - companies have traditionally turned to internet databases that can either show the potential employee as nothing but hireable or the exact opposite. Problem is, many of these online databases are incomplete, giving employers only a partial picture of the applicant's past. Now, an Arizona-based company called CrimShield offers companies and organization a full sweep of an applicant's background - with a twist. When the employee has been approved by CrimShield's fine-toothed combs, they're given a customized ID badge.

Jefferson County employees in Beaumont, TX, are getting used to carrying their new employee ID cards. The cards, the first phase of a new county security plan passed last August, have a data chip (like the HID iClass) inside the card that stores personal data like name, date of hire, and departmental information.

Students, faculty and staff at universities nationwide have been making the switch from social security numbers to 9 digit ID numbers for several years - now it's time for UW-Madison to trade in their cards. Some 9,000 professors, instructors and other university faculty will be turning in their old ID cards in exchange for a new one that features a 9 digit identifying ID number instead of the traditional social security number.

In a shocking blow for Chicago O'Hare's reputation, federal and local law enforcement officials arrested 24 illegal workers they suspect were using fake security badges to work in restricted areas of the O'Hare airport. The badges were actually real, but deactivated O'Hare ID cards, and police are at a loss to explain how workers still managed to gain access to sensitive areas with the non-functioning cards. Police also apprehended two managers at Ideal Staffing Solutions, Inc., the temp agency that hired illegal immigrants knowingly and provided them with the false IDs, which gave them access to purportedly secure areas around O'Hare. Most of the workers loaded freight for companies doing business with O'Hare-- including commercial airlines.

From Missouri to Utah, parents are learning that it never hurts to be too cautious. Last year’s infamous Michael Devlin kidnapping and child abuse case has spurred a resurgence of child identification database and ID card creation in Missouri, where Devlin held Shawn Hornbeck and Ben Ownby captive in his Kirkwood, MO apartment. While Hornbeck and Ownby were fortunate enough to escape with their lives, the abuse they suffered has left parents wondering what they can do to protect their children—or, at the very least, help get them home safely and quickly—from the nightmare of child abduction.

Aside from being randomly searched, losing your toiletries under the strict no-liquid policy, and having your airline conveniently drop your luggage in say, Kathmandu instead of Kalamazoo, traveling with a pet is one of the more stressful traveling experiences. There's the weight limits, the exact measurements of the traveling crate, making sure that a pet will be safe and comfortable in the cargo hold or cabin, and finally, waiting out the anxiety of a long plane ride.

You've probably heard something about Hannah Montana in the past year - the Emmy-nominated Disney channel show and singing sensation Miley Cyrus (Hannah Montana herself) were for a long time relegated to children, who gobbled up the snappy pop tunes and watched the show religiously. However, when the time came for Hannah Montana's first national tour, everyone else began to realize what a phenomenon the show had become.

"Soccer Mom" has a new meaning in South Florida (along with many other places). Instead of ferrying children back and forth to practice and cheering on the sidelines at games, many sports parents have taken an active role on their child's sports teams - volunteering, chauferring teams around, organizing parent activities, and helping coach. And now, along with the requisite station wagon, van or SUV keys and water bottles, team parents are now sporting ID badges when at practices and games.

The Walter Reed Army Medical Center is implementing Mobilisa's Defense ID system in order to to secure the enormous facility, which has a potential patient population of 8 million people. The center will not be issuing their own cards; instead the Defense ID scanner reads data from any government ID card-- including Canadian driver's licenses-- and crosschecks each individual against more than 100 databases of criminal offenders and other parties who have been banned from military properties.

In Trinidad, tactical police offers must now wear identification badges with their photographs on display at all times. Criminals in black have been impersonating members of tactical forces, who usually participate in the execution of search warrants and raids, in order to commit crimes against unwitting civilians. From now on, legitimate tactical unit officers will travel with uniformed police, in marked vehicles. Acting Deputy Commissioner of Crime Operations Gilbert Reyes cautioned the public against cooperating with people dressed in black who do not have proper identification on display.

In Prince William County, which contains the second-largest school system in Virginia, 86 schools have implemented an electronic visitor check-in system to keep tabs on visitors and instantly check them against a 460,000-person-long list of sex offenders from across the country. The system, otherwise known as the Raptor, will note when visitors enter and exit the building and keep registered sex offenders off school grounds. These security systems are not unique to Prince William County, either. In Anne Arundel County, the Raptor has ensnared three sex offenders and led to one arrest. And by the end of the school year, officials in the Loudoun County school district want to install video cameras and intercomes outside school doors so that all visitors would have to be buzzed in.

If you've ever been to a government building, you know the drill. A security guard inspects your ID card, your belongings take a spin through the x-ray machine, and you stroll through the metal detector, hoping that that filling won't act up again. However, worries about fake IDs, forgery and attacks have caused concerns among some.

Washington D.C. area airports may become the newest users of a unique travel ID card program. The Registered Traveler program, the brainchild of the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA), makes security checks at airports less of a hassle for frequent travelers. Registered travelers pay a small fee and then undergo a thorough background check before being issued an ID card which allows them to bypass the snaking lines of passengers that have become common at airport security checks.

El Paso, TX City Rep Rachel Quintana is in trouble - she's currently under investigation for forgery, using an old ID card from her previous employment at FedEx to purchase a discounted ticket on Southwest Airlines. Several El Paso city officials believe that Quintana's integrity has been severely challenged due to this incident - while some see it as a political stunt. Either way, Quintana used an ID card belonging to FedEx to purchase a ticket from Texas to California nearly one month after she left the company.

What's one of the most important things in disaster recovery? The natural response is to say to help - as much as possible and wherever needed. However, first responders - groups like fire fighters, police officers, medical personnel and the national guard, have recently struggled with responder tracking during major disasters like Hurricane Katrina and 9/11. Government officials struggle to locate, organize and effectively battle the crisis to which they are responding. First responders, who may quickly move from place to place and agency to agency in order to maximize efficiency and help, need to work and communicate quickly and focus as much as possible on the task at hand instead of the infrastructure of support.

Authorities in Guangdong Province, China (one of the country's wealthiest areas) have introduced a plan which aims to boost security, prevent crime, and make cities and villages in Guangdong safer for everyone. RFID cards, to be issued to all residents, are a key element of this plan. Citizens would be required to carry one of these ID cards on them at all times, and information from the cards will be used to bolster a government program called the "public security information network." The RFID cards, which will hold information like bus records and credit card purchases, will likely transmit the information stored on the card to checkpoints at certain intervals. RFID cards, or contactless smart cards, have the ability to transmit information to a reader or interceptor through radio waves.

Ah, the idyllic days of summer, where the days consist of mischief, little league games, playing with friends, and swimming at the town pool. Perfect, right? Maybe for kids - but parents can quickly get worried when they don't know where little Johnny or Suzie ran off to. The Shanklin Municipal Pool in Goshen, Indiana has instituted an ID card program which city officials hope will help prevent this.

Parents, students and teachers are at odds over a new ID card program proposed for the Dover, PA school district. Dover high recently added a comprehensive series of video surveillance cameras - 26 in all - in and around the high school campus. But, school administrators say, that's just not enough.

In response to a rash of robberies in nearby Marion, officials in Sherborn, MA have instituted a policy that requires all 55 city employees to wear ID badges.

After publicly joining the governors of several other states in a clear disapproval of the REAL ID act of 2005, Washington governor Christine Gregoire has voiced support for a new state ID program that would replace the state's requirements for the REAL ID card.

69% of Irish 16 and 17-year olds have admitted to underage drinking, and in a response, the Irish government is issuing a voluntary tamper-proof ID card, with plans to eventually make it compulsory.

Traditionally, RFID use has been limited to two distinct areas - tracking and access control. A popular tool for tracking shipments and bulk orders, manufacturers and shippers put RFID chips in stored merchandise in order to make shipping and package movement more efficient and less wasteful. More secure RFID chips embedded in employee ID cards are helpful in ensuring access control in secure and sensitive work environments.

The central elements of an ID card system have been the same for a while now - computer, printer, cards, camera, cables, as well as the security features a card can have - holographic overlay, magnetic stripes, RFID antennas, smart card chips, bar codes. Most of the ID card machines available today are able to produce these kinds of security measures easily and at high rates.

Maternity wards in Lubbock, TX have been aflutter lately - not with multiple births, Siamese twins or "ER"-style floods and firestorms, but with the threats of babynapping.

After a recent baby snatching, maternity wards all over the country have been looking to increase their security in order to protect newborns and parents alike from kidnapping, baby switching, and other nightmare situations.

Whether you notice or not, there are some major changes taking place in the ID card industry right now. New technologies, new laws and the continual push for maximum efficiency have created several new and important ID card developments in recent months. Here are some things to keep your eyes open for:

Fake IDs are usually thought of as a teenage problem - used by underage kids to buy alcohol and tobacco or get into trendy night clubs. However, in the last five years, falsified ID cards have shown to cause many more problems than underage drinking.

http://www.alphacard.com/lanyards.shtmlID cards have been normal at schools for years now. Students keep them in their wallets to use in the lunch line or to check out books, visitors and staff use them for identification. They're such a normal part of most students' lives that Now, in Florida, a controversy has erupted over a teacher  who refuses to wear an ID badge.

ID badges have been commonplace for school visitors for years - but unlike the laminated "VISITOR" squares printed on the construction paper of the past, many schools have adopted high-tech badge policies which require bar codes, visitor names, and sometimes even photos. A Cincinnati area school district has announced that it's taking it one step further.

Years of warlords, civil strife and drug trafficking in Colombia have brought thousands of refugees into neighboring Venezuela - over 200,000 in the past eight years. While only 20 of these are recognized as legitimate refugees, Venezuela has recently instituted an ID card program to protect those who have requested asylum.

UK Prime Minister Tony Blair has made another push for the implementation of a national ID card system, saying that ID cards and biometric identification technology are one of the most important steps a country can take in preventing terrorism and terrorist attacks.

The United States' involvement in Iraq is one of the most hotly debated domestic issues today. With such divisive opinions and harsh reactions to policies and troop movements, even the most inane details are highly debated topics. One current issue is President George W. Bush's initiative to send over 20,000 new troops to Iraq in a "surge" that defense experts say could help amend current problems. Predictably, the issue is split down party lines, with most Republicans supporting the surge and most Democrats opposing it. Democratic congressmen have gone so far as to draft a non-binding resolution opposing President Bush's proposed troop increase. The House of Representatives is debating the issue this week in what is predicted to be one of the most heated and emotional debates to take place in the Capitol.

The British Army, one of AlphaCard's customers, recently forwarded on a couple of pictures from their current work in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. Officers are using an ID card printer to make secure badges for the new Afghani police force.