Magnetic Strips

Magnetic Strips, typically found on a Magnetic Stripe Card is capable of storing data by modifying the magnetism of small iron-based magnetic particles on a strip of magnetic material. The magnetic stripe, sometimes called swipe card is read by physical contact and swiping past a magnetic reading head.

A number of International Organization define the standards, for example, ISO/IEC 7810, ISO/IEC 7811, ISO/IEC 7812, ISO/IEC 7813, ISO 8583, and ISO/IEC 4909. These standards define the physical properties of the card, including size, flexibility and location of the magnetic strip, its magnetic characteristics, and data formats.

They also provide the standards for bank cards, including the allocation of card number ranges to different card issuing institutions.

Typical AIDC usages are;

Access Badge or for Access Control used to gain entry to an area having automated access control entry points. Entry points may be doors, turnstiles, parking gates or other barriers

ID Card which contain user Identification data

Key Card used to operate locks and stores a physical or digital signature which the door mechanism accepts before opening the lock, sometimes also containing an RFID proximity tag.