Remember when the meter reader used to come into your backyard unannounced, pet your dog, record your meter reading and move on to the next door neighbors house? Not wearing any badge, dressed in clothes appropriate for climbing through bushes and kneeling on the ground, carrying only a clipboard and pencil, this person was a trusted municipal worker that sometimes was greeted with a cool drink or fresh baked cookies.
Remember a time when there was an emergency and your Dad would load up the pickup truck, drive to the scene to pitch in with whatever needed to be done? We used to fill sandbags shoulder to shoulder with emergency workers, douse flames next to the local firefighters (remember bucket brigades?), or just show up at a scene and take instructions from the police officer in charge.
Those are times gone by. Today if you show up at an emergency scene in your pickup truck without proper emergency responder identification, you are likely to be told to move along or stay behind the barricade- denied access in favor of security and accountability. Today’s meter reader is aware of the unease with trespassing even in the line of duty. Without proper identification, today’s meter readers risk confrontation and perhaps even violence in the execution of their duties.
These are just a few obvious examples of today’s need for positive identification to better coordinate our emergency responders, provide accountability of them and to identify everyone within our municipal government.
With positive identification we can now have meter readers going onto private property wearing an official municipal badge with a picture on it, allowing residents the comfort of knowing who is on their property from a glance, at a distance. Meter readers will be getting those cool drinks and baked cookies once again.
With positive identification a scene commander can scan the ID card of all emergency responders into a hand held device upon arrival at a scene and scan all ID cards at the end of the situation or at anytime during, to instantly determine who is accounted for and who isn’t. Not that 12 came in and only 11 came out, but exactly who didn’t come out. Name, rank, department and more.
Scene commanders can assign areas within a scene for EMT, triage, security, man-power, rehab, traffic control, etc. ID badges with color coded borders indicating each wearer’s qualifications, can direct personnel to the appropriate scene areas and identify those who shouldn’t be there. Even temporary ID badges can be produced ahead of time or on-scene for those without the identification particulars used in your municipality.
Positive Identification is not always limited to emergency situations. Municipalities are finding that once a Photo ID System is purchased and implemented within their community, there are many other uses to be explored. Seniors without driver’s licenses can be issued trusted-municipal Photo ID cards that can be used for identification in banks, at community events and even as a Photo ID to board commercial airliners.
Community pool ID cards; skate park ID cards; registering solicitors within a community; licensing those who serve alcohol, drive school buses or operate municipal equipment; gas cards for municipal vehicles; equipment tags for municipal property- all can be produced and managed with an ID system.
Photo ID Solutions address this need. The solutions provide positive visual identification, accountability and much, much more. Barcodes, magnetic stripe and smart card technology is all available to meet the needs of any municipality. The ID software that drives the card production integrates with the municipality’s database or creates one of it’s own for ease of reissuing cards, recording events or managing accountability at a remote site. Does your municipality already have an accountability software package? No problem. The ID software is typically agnostic to these packages. The ID software produces and encodes a standards-based barcode or magnetic stripe on an ID card that can be read by many devices. The solutions are used in producing over 90% of the world’s credit cards. Now is the time to speak to an identification expert on the ways to improve your municipal process and control doctrine.
Scott Schilder is a Subject Matter Expert on photo identification systems and solutions. He has served as a consultant to Government Agencies with regards to Photo Identification.