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 * User:Linda Golden/U Card, Official University of Minnesota photo ID card draft article

U Card
The U Card is the official University of Minnesota photo identification card. The U Card is a one-of-a-kind card and is unique to the college ID card industry in that it's used throughout the University system, including the Twin Cities campuses, Duluth campus, Morris campus, Crookston campus and soon to be on the Rochester campus.

A team from University of Minnesota’s Office of Information Technology Department developed the software program used to create and produce U Cards in 1994. This software program, called "U Card Production," is currently in its third iteration, nineteenth version. There is no other U Card Production program in the country. Today this program uses a wizard format to enable consistent card production.

The U Card's design was created using a DataCard software program called, "ID Centre" in 1995 and won a the National Association of Campus Card Users (NACCU), "Best Card Design Award" in 1998. Each coordinate campus uses a slight variation of the back of the U Card's design to coordinate with the distinct campus services associated with card.

Currently the U Card is a dual technology ID card. It utilizes electronic technology encoded on a magnetic strip on back of the card as well as radio frequency identification (RFID) technology making it a ‘smart’ card. The RFID technology is one of the safest ways to protect information stored on a card. Being a research-driven institution, security is important to the University. The U Card allows access to information to only those that should have access to certain data. The U Card allows for access with encrypted data transfer, which minimizes the risk of fraudulent data copying from the card.