Print and mail
Identification Cards and Credentials
Employee badges, contractor credentials, permits, and placards, including the ones that open doors.
What this covers
Credentialing covers two things: the card or placard a person carries, and the record behind it saying who the person is, what it permits, and when it stops being valid. That includes employee and contractor identification cards, visitor and temporary badges, identification for sworn personnel, and the permits and placards an agency issues to the public. Some are only visual. Others are electronic keys that a reader and an access control system act on.
Human resources and facilities usually own employee badging. The identity group enters when the card also carries logical access. Police, sheriff, fire, and the courts set their own requirements. Public works, parking, building, and business licensing issue permits and placards from a permitting or licensing system.
The card is the end of a process, not the start of one. Most of the difficulty sits upstream of the printer: the identifier that links a personnel record to a cardholder record, the rule deciding which doors a role opens, the date a contractor's access should stop, and the reconciliation that finds the credentials nobody turned off.
Typical activities
- Credential design and security features. Layered features matched to whoever verifies the card: microtext, fine line patterns, and a ghost image for checks by eye, plus overlaminates and optically variable devices.
- Card technology and encoding. Proximity cards, contactless smart cards in the ISO/IEC 14443 family, magnetic stripe, and bar codes differ in one decisive respect: whether readers trust a freely readable chip serial number or a protected data object, and who holds the keys.
- Integration with the systems of record. Badge data comes from human resources, payroll, or contract records, and permits from the permitting system. The work is a stable unique identifier and rules for name changes, transfers, rehires, and contract extensions.
- Enrollment and identity proofing. Review of source documents, photograph capture to a consistent standard, and the notice and consent language shown to applicants.
- Issuance and binding to access control. Encode the card, create the cardholder record, assign access by role rather than individual request, test it at a reader before it leaves the counter, and log the issuance.
- Expiration, replacement, and lost cards. Credentials that expire with the contract or assignment, a defined replacement path, and prompt deny listing of a reported lost card number.
- Revocation and return at separation. A credential step inside offboarding, deactivation rather than deletion so audit history survives, collection and destruction of the card, and reconciliation against active people and contracts.
- Permit and placard production. Variable data from the permitting system, serialized numbering enforcement staff can look up, and substrate and adhesive suited to a windshield or outdoor posting.
What you receive
- A credential specification: artwork, card construction, security features, and personalization fields with their data sources.
- An encoding and numbering specification covering card format, key handling, and key custody.
- Written issuance and revocation procedures with roles assigned, including the separation step and the lost card path.
- A loaded and tested system: cardholder records in the access control system, access groups configured, read tests recorded.
- Production files, proofs, and serial range records for permits, with spoilage destruction documented.
Considerations for public agencies
Privacy and public records. A badge database holds photographs and often birth dates and home addresses. Many states exempt security related records and parts of personnel files from disclosure, and several protect identifying information for sworn personnel. Personal information from state motor vehicle records is restricted by the federal Driver's Privacy Protection Act, and biometric templates may fall under state biometric privacy laws. These rules change, so confirm current law with counsel before deciding what to collect and release.
Records retention. Applications, issuance logs, enrollment photographs, and access control event logs are records under your state retention schedule. Set retention periods before the database is built: keeping everything forever is as much a liability as purging early.
Procurement and lock-in. Credential technology has to match the readers already installed, which narrows competition more than most purchases. Require that the agency own the card format documentation, the numbering scheme, and custody of any encryption keys, and ask for open reader protocols. Otherwise the next reissue is a sole source purchase.
Deadlines set by statute or season. Permit cycles, business license renewals, residential parking seasons, and election worker credentialing have fixed dates, and schedules are built backward from them.
Controlled stock and chain of custody. Card stock, overlaminates, and pre numbered permits are accountable items. Sequential logs, secure storage, witnessed destruction of spoilage, and separation between approval and production keep the program auditable.
The public facing side. Where residents apply or renew online, the portal falls under your accessibility obligations, commonly measured against WCAG and the Department of Justice rule for state and local government web content, and applicants who cannot use it need another path. Disability parking placards follow their own state program rules, so verify current requirements against the official source.
Working with HQT on this
HQT works on the part of credentialing between the systems of record and the issued card: integration with human resources and permitting data, card format and encoding specification, written issuance and revocation procedure, and production of cards, permits, and placards. An engagement starts with a review of the current credential population, the installed readers, and the systems that feed them.
Frequently asked questions
Can we change credential suppliers without replacing our card readers?
Usually yes, provided the card format, the numbering scheme, and any encryption keys are documented and held by the agency. If the keys sit only with the previous supplier, or the format is proprietary and undocumented, the realistic options narrow to reissuing every card or replacing readers. Ask for that documentation and key custody as a named deliverable in the current contract, before you need it.
Are employee badge photographs subject to public records requests?
It depends on the state. Many public records acts exempt security records and portions of personnel files, and several states specifically shield identifying information for sworn personnel, but the exemptions are often narrower than agencies assume. Treat this as a question for your records officer and counsel rather than a design assumption, and settle it before building the photograph repository.
How should contractor badges be handled when a contract ends?
Set the credential to expire on the contract or task order end date at the moment of issuance, so expiration is the default instead of something a person has to remember. Put credential return into contract closeout and into the vendor's stated responsibilities, and deactivate the card in the access control system rather than deleting the record so the audit history survives. Reconcile active credentials against active contracts on a schedule, because that is where orphaned access shows up.
Do we need PIV or PIV-I credentials?
Those standards come from federal requirements and matter most when staff need interoperable access to federal facilities or systems, or when a grant or partner agreement calls for them. Many state and local programs do not need them, and adopting the full standard brings identity proofing, issuance, and lifecycle obligations well beyond printing a card. Confirm against current federal guidance and any agreement that binds your agency before specifying it.
How long do we keep credential records and door access logs?
Retention is governed by your state records retention schedule, and the applicable categories are usually personnel records, security records, and system audit logs rather than anything labeled badging. Applications, issuance logs, photographs, and reader event logs can carry different periods. Confirm the current schedule with your records officer, since these are also among the records most likely to be sought in litigation or an audit.