A Different Kind of "Fingerprint"

Datacard Group recently announced a product that promises to make life difficult for skimmers - criminals that use machines that can take the data off of a magnetic card for use in creating a new, fraudulent card.

Datacard's product is a reader that has the capability of reading the "fingerprint" of the magnetic stripe itself. In other words, it can read the pattern that the iron flecks making up the stripe have. Those patterns are random, and they do not change as the stripe wears down.

The technology requires that a portion of the stripe be recorded as the fingerprint for the card at the time the card is personalized for an individual. This fingerprint is then turned into a data pattern. Merchants interested in the technology need special readers that allow the fingerprint pattern to be read and compared to what is on file with the card issuer.

Copyright © 2003 Bankers' Hotline. Originally appeared in Bankers' Hotline, Vol. 13, No. 4, 6/24