The new-look police ID badge now comes with a highly secure, registered hologram laminate placed over the plastic badge. This is an improvement from the old design, which was printed with no hologram laminate. Hence, the dual-sided registered laminates put these cards on the top of the range of high security cards.

This badge itself also carries details such as the police personnel’s color photo, name, department, title, birthday, as well as the date of issuance of the card. This personalization provides secure identity to the badge holder.

The Korean Police Agency decided to print the cards internally to prevent counterfeiting of ID badges.  The P640i, Zebra’s top-of-the-range security card printer, is the perfect choice. It copes effortlessly with high printing and security demands that are a requisite with the government agency.

The P640i’s ID Key prevents unauthorised printer use and the ID log driver utility builds a customizable card transaction record in the printer’s host computer for added security. Therefore, the entire card issuance process is secure and controlled.

First installed in February of 2007, 22 units of the P640i were located centrally to print 100,000 ID badges. These printers were subsequently distributed to the provinces to enable convenient, on-the-spot, decentralized printing.

The P640i, with the built-in Ethernet print server, simplifies printer networking. This links the 22 printers to the central database of the police force, which is located at the headquarters in Seoul.

Ace CardNet, Zebra’s Korean partner, provided training on the usage of the laminating printer. Police staff located in the provinces are, therefore, well trained to operate the P640i. They are equipped to print replacement police ID badges for lost and old ones as well as for new hires. This is convenient and saves time during the card issuance process.

Byun Soo-Young, sales manager of Biovision Co., Ltd., the system integrator for this project, said, “We chose the Zebra P640i for a few reasons. First, this printer comes with security features. Second, the low cost per print is also an advantage.”

This winning edge is due to the built-in laminator, which enables one-pass dual-sided laminating. Combined with the fast printing speed, the P640i helps deliver maximum card throughput per hour.

With this system in place, the Korean National Police agency is looking at issuing between 40,000 to 60,000 ID badges annually. Besides this, there are future plans to expand the usage of the P640i for other applications within the government agency. By placing microchips in the cards, future ID badges can be used for access control to restrict the movement of personnel in certain areas.

For more information, please send your e-mails to swm@infothe.com.

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