System for producing a personal ID card

A method of producing and using an identification card with protection against falsification, comprising the steps of:

• providing a card in the form of a thin, pocket-sized substrate having front and back surfaces;
• imprinting two-dimensional human-cognizable indicia on a surface of the card, the indicia being selected from the group consisting of a graphical representation of an individual's facial likeness, the individual's signature, the individual's fingerprint, and textual information identifying the individual;
• imprinting a two-dimensional machine-readable code on a surface of the card, the machine-readable code being imprinted using the same printing medium as that used to imprint said human-cognizable indicia, the machine-readable code comprising an array of polygon-shaped printed cells and non-printed blank areas arranged along two independent axes, the array encoding representative data to the human-cognizable indicia selected from the group consisting of a graphical representation of an individual's facial likeness, the individual's fingerprint, the individual's signature, and textual information identifying the individual;
• reading and decoding the machine-readable code imprinted on the card with a machine;
• generating an identical image of the human-cognizable indicia from the machine-readable code imprinted on the card without referencing an external database;
• and
• comparing the image generated from the machine-readable code imprinted on the card and the two-dimensional human-cognizable information imprinted on the card to ensure that the card has not been falsified.