Make Your Own Child ID
At DIGIKIDS® we are serious about child safety, and committed to
offering parents the most advanced and effective child ID available
today.
The DIGIKIDS®
Child ID Program is offered onsite at
Business Sponsored Safety Events,
schools and preschools, and online at the
DIGIKIDS® Store.
To make sure that every child is protected, we also wanted to share step-by-step instructions you
can use to make your own portable CD, ID card and posters.
When you are finished, you won't have the automated features of
the
but you will have the
basics based on
guidelines from the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC.org)
and something that is much better than an ID card alone.
Make Your Own ID Instructions
What you need:
- A digital camera
- Access to a computer and CD-ROM burner
- Access to a color printer
- Blank, recordable CD-ROM's (CDR's), and/or Floppy Disks
- Card stock or heavy paper that will go through a printer
- Access to a laminator
- Weight Scale
- Height Scale
Start Here:
Step 1 - Take two digital photos.
Use the digital camera to take both a portrait and profile of your
child.
- Set the camera file size. According to the digital camera
you are using, there are settings to reduce the size of the file
(photo) to keep it small enough for both photos to fit on a
floppy or transmit via Internet email. Our suggestion is to keep
each photo no larger than about 500K. (Our software program uses
advanced compression technology to dramatically reduce the file
size for quick transfer without any loss of quality. You may
want to experiment with smaller file sizes by dragging the
finished photo onto your open browser to see the final result.)
- If you have a choice between formats, use the .jpeg setting.
- Have your child remove any distracting items such as hats,
glasses, and large play jewelry, etc.
- Use a neutral background. Light or sky blue is usually the
best but a white wall will work.
 Take head and shoulder portraits
from different angles, such as those taken by school
photographers.
When you are finished, you want high quality photographs in sharp
focus that most resemble your child. Try for candid, as opposed to
posed photos, which the NCMEC says “may be more representative of
how your child looks than a posed shot."
The NCMEC (NCMEC.org) recommends updating your child's photos and
physical descriptions every six months for children 6 years of age
or younger and then once a year, or when your child's appearance
changes.
Step 2 - Write down a physical description of your child.
To save your information, our suggestion is to use Microsoft
WordPad (.txt) as this is the easiest to cut and paste into the many
different law enforcement databases if the need should arise. You
can also use Microsoft Word or other word processing program. You
will be adding this file to your CD or floppy (below).
Include:
- Color of hair
- Color of eyes
- Height
- Weight
- Age
- Date of birth
Add any descriptive identifiers such as:
- Eyeglasses or contact lenses
- Braces on teeth
- Pierced ears
- Other unique physical attributes
- We add health concerns and allergies to the DIGIKIDS® CD and
ID card, and suggest that you add those also.
IMPORTANT: Don't include your address, phone number,
school or other tracking information criminals could use if you were
to lose your ID!
Step 3 - Make an ID card to carry.
Even with the limitations of common photo ID cards, there are
times when they are useful for immediate onsite reference, for
instance if your child is missing in a store. (See
) That's why we include a PVC Color ID Card with the DIGIKIDS® CD.
The
card can be as simple as a sharp color portrait photo of your child
with the complete description clearly written on the back, or you
might want to use a program such as Microsoft Word to layout your
own.
NOTE: You don't need to add a fingerprint to the card,
since fingerprints aren't useful when you are trying to locate your
child. But you should keep fingerprints and DNA of your child in a
safe place at home in the event a forensic identification needs to be made.
(See Fingerprints and DNA below)
If you don't have a color printer, you can take what you create
to a quick print store such as FedEx Kinko's. They can also laminate
your cards.
If you make your own:
- Make sure it is small enough to carry in a wallet or purse
- Heavy paper or card stock is best
- Consider having it professionally printed in color so the
photo is sharp and clear
- Protect it by having it laminated
- Make enough for anyone that is with your child to carry
Be sure to update the photo and description frequently. The NCMEC
(NCMEC.org) recommends updating your child's photos and physical
descriptions every six months for children 6 years of age or younger
and then once a year, or when your child's appearance changes.
Step 4 - Posters
It is a good idea to make a few posters of your child using the
photos and descriptions you've put together.
Posters are very useful to post at store or theme park exits if
you can't find your child. You may also want to make up a number of
ID cards (above) that you can hand out in an emergency.
Many stores have a
program.
When a customer reports a missing child to a store employee, a "Code
Adam" alert is announced over the public-address system. All
designated employees stop their normal work to search for the child,
and monitor all exits to help prevent the child from leaving the
store.
Our poster automatically prints from the DIGIKIDS® CD on standard
8 1/2 X 11 paper with about a 4 X 6 photo, and that's the size we
suggest you make.
Step 5 - Save to CD-ROM
It is important to keep a digital form of ID with you and
readily accessible so you can quickly respond to a missing child
emergency.
 The NCMEC
(NCMEC.org) says, "When possible the photograph should be in a
digitized form, and available on a compact disk (CD), as opposed to
just a hard copy. This minimizes the time necessary to scan, resize,
and make color corrects before disseminating it to law enforcement."
Like the NCMEC (NCMEC.org), our suggestion is to use a CD-ROM since floppies
are easy to damage without you knowing it. For instance, they are
highly susceptible to erasure by magnets (such as by a car stereo
speaker) and water will damage them. And many of the newer computers
don't have floppy drives.
We use a business card size CD since full-size CD's are too large
to easily carry. If you don't have access to a small CDR to store
and carry your information, you can keep the the large CD in a locked glove compartment, or in a purse. Either way,
consider using a plastic sleeve or 'jewel case' to protect the CD.
When copying photos to your CD, they should be in .jpeg format
and the physical descriptions in either a .txt file (easiest for law
enforcement to work with) or in Microsoft Word. It's best to make a
number of CD's so that anyone that is with your child has the photos
and information at all times - children are most often reported lost
or missing from somewhere other than home.
And finally, we suggest you write the date on
the face of the CD with a Sharpie type pen so you can remember to
update the physical descriptions and photos at the NCMEC's (NCMEC.org)
recommended schedule.
IMPORTANT: Be sure you don't include your address, phone number,
school or other tracking information criminals could use if you were
to lose your CD!
**A note for MAC computer users: If you create the CD on your
Macintosh Computer, please make sure you test it in a Windows® PC.
It is much easier to find a Windows® PC when you are away from home
to use in an emergency. All police departments and other law
enforcement agencies (as far as we know) use Windows® PC's.
Using Your ID
Sending Photos and Physical Descriptions
Most email programs allow you to attach files and send with an
email; some are easier to use than others.
You may know exactly how
to use your personal email program or online email service, but in
an emergency you probably won't be using the one you are familiar
with. Children are most often reported lost or missing from
somewhere other than home.
To send or attach your files you can usually launch a new email and
with the CD you made in the CD drive, navigate to the photos and
identifying information and manually attach one at a time. If you
can't send email, or the email is rejected by the recipient, you can
hand the CD you made to the responding officer who can take it to
the police station and manually extract the files.
IMPORTANT: If you do send emergency email, we strongly suggest that
you follow up with each recipient to make sure the email went
through.
Here's why:
One of the major obstacles we had to overcome when designing the
DIGIKIDS® CD was the electronic transfer or broadcasting of the
photos and physical description information via email.
Because we automatically attach so many files (more than what you
will be doing manually with your CD), many Internet Service
Providers (ISP) mistook the emergency email as SPAM or a virus - and
blocked the email.
There are also many people that don't have Outlook or other MAPI
compliant email program installed on their computer, (or the one
they need to use in an emergency) rather depending on one of the
online email providers like Hotmail or Yahoo, further slowing or
even eliminating the sending of attachments with the emergency
email.
The answer was our †patent-pending SMTP eMail Program™ that is fully
contained on the DIGIKIDS® CD. With the DIGIKIDS® CD you don't need
an outside email program. It also routes emergency email and
attachments through a dedicated network so that it is not mistaken
for SPAM or virus and rejected.
Fingerprints and DNA
Authorities ask that you keep both fingerprints and DNA in a safe
place at home in the event a forensic identification needs to be
made. We include our Be Prepared™ Home Fingerprint & DNA Kit with
the DIGIKIDS® Child CD at no charge for this purpose.
If you would like to use our kit to take and store your child's
fingerprints, you can purchase a kit at the
Online Store.
You can also use your local police department, as they will usually
fingerprint your child without charge. Some states have developed
programs in which a DNA sample of a child is taken at the same time.
If this is offered in your state, make sure that you keep the only
DNA sample that is taken from your child, and store it in a safe
place in your home.
If you have any questions about these instructions, or would like
more information on starting a DIGIKIDS® Business of your own,
please Contact Us!
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