Login
You're viewing the front-end.social public feed.
  • Dave Andersondanderson@hachyderm.io
    Nov 8, 2026, 6:39 AM

    TIL ISO 7810 is why debit/credit cards and a bunch of ID documents are all the same size. Turns out they're all the ID-1 size from that standard. My quite old French ID card used the larger ID-2, and passports use ID-3.

    And, preposterously, the same standard also defines ID-000 for mini-SIM cards. According to wikipedia, because the OG large format SIM cards were ID-1, so I guess when they started shrinking ISO wanted to name the new standard.

    Looks like they gave up for micro-SIM and nano-SIM though, there's no ID-0000 or ID-00000. I guess writing those out, I can see why they didn't, it's quite silly even for ISO.

    💬 1🔄 0⭐ 0

Replies

  • Dave Andersondanderson@hachyderm.io
    Nov 8, 2026, 6:41 AM

    I also wonder what happened to ID-0 and ID-00. Are the sizes defined as proportional scaling of ID-1 maybe, and so to get down to the empirical size of micro-SIM they had to shrink ID-1 three times?...

    💬 1🔄 0⭐ 0
  • Dave Andersondanderson@hachyderm.io
    Nov 8, 2026, 6:47 AM

    And of course ISO would like $115 for me to browse this stupid document. I'm curious, but not _that_ curious.

    💬 1🔄 0⭐ 0
  • 💬 1🔄 0⭐ 0
  • Dave Andersondanderson@hachyderm.io
    Nov 8, 2026, 6:52 AM

    You'll be pleased to know that ISO has your back, and requires that ID cards should not be toxic when used normally.

    I mean sure I guess it doesn't hurt to write that down, but which country was making asbestos passports before this standard?

    💬 2🔄 1⭐ 0
  • Dave Andersondanderson@hachyderm.io
    Nov 8, 2026, 6:52 AM

    Interestingly though it says nothing about how poisonous, or indeed venomous they can be...

    💬 1🔄 0⭐ 0
  • Dave Andersondanderson@hachyderm.io
    Nov 8, 2026, 6:54 AM

    Huh, though here's a surprising requirement: ID-1 cards have to be opaque to IR light in some wavelength ranges. Apparently for compatibility with scanners that use said IR light for card presence.

    💬 1🔄 0⭐ 0
  • Dave Andersondanderson@hachyderm.io
    Nov 8, 2026, 6:58 AM

    Weirdly there are two different sets of dimension specs, one for blank cards and one for cards after "personalization", meaning after your face and deets get printed on them. Personalized cards have slightly looser dimensional tolerance, I assume to allow for in-spec blanks to be smushed slightly during the personalization process without going out of spec.

    💬 1🔄 0⭐ 0
  • Dave Andersondanderson@hachyderm.io
    Nov 8, 2026, 6:59 AM

    I kinda want to take calipers to all my cards now and see if they're in spec. But instead I'm going to be sensible and go to bed.

    💬 1🔄 0⭐ 0
  • Dave Andersondanderson@hachyderm.io
    Nov 8, 2026, 7:02 AM

    And no the standard doesn't say why they decided to call the smaller form factor ID-000 instead of ID-0. ID-{1,2,3} don't follow any obvious scaling rule, I suspect ISO just wrote down what a bunch of people were empirically doing.

    💬 0🔄 0⭐ 0
  • Cliff'sEsportCornerCliffsEsport@mastodon.social
    Nov 8, 2026, 2:50 PM

    @danderson Been while since I did ISO specific documentation/technical writing. But I can see including non toxic spec as useful, with purchasing and supply chain not every cog in machine will bother thinking or caring about use case of product being supplied. And often less safe materials can have economic or manufacturing benefits, specially if employee, environmental, etc cost not paid by manufacturer. Historical note w riveted Military tanks vs welded in WWII.

    💬 0🔄 0⭐ 0