By Marissa Widdison
Many are bent and cracked after years of being swiped though cash registers and stuffed in jean pockets. Grainy black and white photos are now almost completely worn off.
In two months, the familiar, purple BYU identification card will be disabled.
'The magnetic stripe on the back of the ID card has the student''s identification number,' said Ann Carter, Signature Card and ID center supervisor. 'After the cards are disabled, when you swipe the old card, nothing will happen.'
According to the Signature Card office, approximately 75 percent of students have exchanged their old ID cards for new ones. Signature Card officials encourage the remaining 25 percent of students to make the change as soon as possible, and avoid the lines that are sure to come.
'It takes two minutes to get,' said Sierra Stilovich, 20, a sophomore majoring in elementary education from Plano, Texas, who works at the Signature Card center. 'To get the new card, students need their social security number and a picture ID. They get their picture taken, and their card is printed out right there.'
If students wait until next semester to obtain their new ID cards, they will have to wait in line with new students, who will also need the card to access funds on Signature Card accounts, take tests at the Testing Center and log on to the KRONOS system at BYU.
Craig Schow, manager of Signature Card and ID card operations, said the cards were changed for three reasons.
'Our hope was that the new cards would be more durable, that we would eliminate the social security number, and that the cards would have a broader application,' said Schow, who was on the committee responsible for designing the new ID cards. 'We were trying to go to a standard format that identified the individual as associated with BYU, but did not reveal any entitlement or role. Students can change their role by adding or dropping classes, and we wanted to make the ID card applicable to all of these situations.'
Besides being thicker and having better photos, the new ID cards also come with a hologram and seal.
'The seal makes the ID card easily identifiable as associated with BYU,' Schow said. 'The hologram makes it less likely that somebody can reproduce it on their own at home.'
Concern about social security fraud was the primary reason for the change, Carter said.
'It (social security fraud) is not necessarily specific to BYU. It''s just across the country,' Carter said. 'Since these cards sometimes get lost at places like airports, the social security number could be available for dishonest people to misuse.'
Students who graduate in April 2003 do not need to get a new ID card, because their old ID card will be active until they leave. However, Carter said April graduates need to know their new ID number for any future contact with BYU.
'For example, if somebody graduates in April and calls later to have a transcript sent somewhere, they will need to know what their new ID number is to retrieve that transcript,' Carter said.
The ID card change will not only affect students; BYU faculty and staff also need a new card. According to the Signature Card office, the old ID cards for faculty and staff expire the same day as the student cards.
Carter estimates that only 30 percent of faculty members have changed to new cards.