HID Global celebrates 20 years of secure ID card issuance innovation and leadership

HID Global®, a worldwide leader in secure identity solutions, is marking 20 years of innovation and leadership with its FARGO® line of solutions. FARGO card personalisation systems were used to print some of the industry’s earliest magstripe cards and have steadily evolved to help facilitate the industry migration to more secure, contactless smart cards and a wide variety of new personalisation features and capabilities. The company’s long list of industry milestones extends from some of the earliest ID card printers to breakthroughs in durability and integrated laser engraving for advanced visual security.

“HID Global, through our FARGO product line, continues to be at the forefront of the card personalisation industry, including the migration from magstripe to more secure contactless smart card technology,” said Craig Sandness, vice president of product marketing, Secure Issuance, with HID Global. “As an original FARGO employee, it has been gratifying to see what we have accomplished over these past two decades. Along the way, we have contributed important secure issuance technology advances, including High Definition Printing (HDP®) for superior print quality and reliability, integrated laser engraving that makes card forgery and alteration virtually impossible, and Asure ID® software enhancements that simplify ID card template design and data entry.”

Since the introduction of the first FARGO printer, HID Global has delivered a steady stream of industry advances in card issuance and personalisation. These include:

• 1993 – Introduced the Persona® card printer, company’s first ID card printer with inline encoding that streamlined the issuance process for magnetic stripe cards.
• 1996 – Released the Cheetah II™ printer, company’s first with lamination capabilities for dramatic increases in card durability.
• 1997 – Unveiled company’s first card printer with smart card encoding, providing new capabilities and a migration path to the industry’s first proximity cards.
• 1999 – Announced availability of the HDP720 ID card printer, company’s first retransfer printer and precursor to the award-winning FARGO line of durable, high-definition printing (HDP) solutions designed specifically for smart cards.
• 1999 – Introduced the UltraCard® products, providing customers with the highest quality in card stock.
• 1999 – Offered the increased security and personalisation capabilities of using both clear and holographic overlaminates for adding advanced visual security elements to ID cards.
• 2002 – Unveiled the DTC500 Series card printer and encoder, an extremely durable, flexible and cost-effective issuance solution that was instantly popular with schools and universities across the U.S. along with large government projects worldwide.
• 2005 – Released Asure ID personalisation software, broadening its portfolio and providing customers with increased capabilities when using FARGO printer solutions.
• 2006 – FARGO is acquired by ASSA ABLOY and merged with HID Global, culminating a long-standing relationship between the two companies and positioning HID Global at the forefront of a rapidly-growing secure issuance market.
• 2006 – Announced the HDP5000 ID card printer and encoder, which achieves award-winning status as the industry standard for ease of use and reliability in a compact solution for premium card printing. With an attractive price point, the HDP5000 ID card printer revolutionises the industry by making the superior card printing quality from retransfer technology available to the masses.
• 2007 – Unveiled the HDPii printer, designed to deliver increased security and Europay/Mastercard/Visa (EMV) compliance while also enabling instant issuance capabilities for banking and financial institutions.
• 2012 – Brought the first, truly industrial table-top printer to market with the company’s HDP8500 card printer and encoder, which delivered increased security while streamlining large issuance projects in the enterprise and government markets.
• 2013 – Built on the success of its HDP8500 printer with the HDP8500LE, featuring sophisticated laser engraving for increased ID card visual security.
• 2014 – Company’s HDP5000 wins “Best New Product” from Security Products Magazine.

HID Global has also steadily improved its card issuance solutions, including support for the company’s iCLASS SE Encoder platform and Seos® credential encoding within FARGO card printers. This latest enhancement to HID Global’s award-winning printers now makes it incredibly easy for users to print and encode physical access control (PACS) credentials in a single, seamless step, further enhancing the user experience for enrolling, managing and issuing smart cards.