Electronic or digital scanners are becoming more prominent. One of the ways you see this is through the use of debit and credit cards. Whether yours has a chip or not, you’ll use a credit card reader to verify your information and your purchase. There are a lot of other uses for a digital scanner other than just verifying your card, though. Here are some of the ways you might come into contact with a digital scanner and what kind of information they gather from you.
As already mentioned, using credit and debit cards almost ensures that you’ve used a card scanner. An estimated 70% of Americans currently have at least a credit card. The magnetic stripe readers you encounter at stores scan the black stripe on the back of the card. This stripe stores your information that you need to make purchases, such as your name and bank account number so that they are able to remove the money from the right account when you use it. The newer chip cards still have that magnetic strip so that if you end up somewhere that doesn’t accept chips, you can still get all of your information through.
Digital scanners may also be used to create or store your identification. It’s true that ID card printers are used by the government to issue forms of identification, but have you ever wondered how they managed that? The ID card printers actually print a bar code similar to your credit card in order to store proof of your identity. That’s why when asked for a form of identification, almost anywhere will accept a driver’s license or other government-issued item such as a passport.
Scanners have started becoming more prominent in other ways too. There is currently an app that works as a scanner for lottery tickets so that you can check if you won some big money. And during voting seasons, voting scanners are used to make sure that all the votes are counted appropriately. They also improve efficiency in places that have to track a lot of documents and stock, such as offices or warehouses. By using these electronic scanners, they reduce the amount of paper being used on a regular basis and eliminate those that are lost or misplaced.
Despite only starting out as ID card printers, it’s easy to see why digital scanners have become so widely-used in different industries. And they’re probably not going to go away anytime soon.