Eastern students and staff added one more task to their back to school to-do lists this year with the distribution of new identification cards.

The vending and student lounge in the Martin Luther King Jr. University Union has been transformed into a temporary turnstile for the re-carding event to accommodate the more than 13,000 people who need to pick up the a new panther card.

The process began last Monday and will continue through Wednesday, Aug. 23.

“There are times when there are long waits, and there are times when it takes ten minutes,” said Clay Hopkins, director of telecommunications, who is in charge of the re-carding process. He said the last distribution of new panther cards was in 2002, and it’s a process that is repeated about every four years.

As of 1 p.m. Sunday, 8,150 new panther cards have been issued.

Charrell Barksdale, sophomore biology major, was worried the line would be long when she went to get her new ID last Tuesday.

“I think they should have done it by last names and assigned times,” she said. Even though she was skeptical of the process, she did like the new design.

“The other one is kind of plain,” she said.

There are a few specific reasons for the new panther cards, said Eastern President Lou Hencken, one being the university’s transition away from using Social Security numbers.

On Jan. 1, 2006, the Social Security Numbers Limited Use Act took effect in Illinois, banning the use of social security numbers for general identification purposes in an effort to prevent identity theft. Provisions affecting Eastern did not take effect until July 1.

The new IDs were distributed to comply with the act, said Bill Witsmen, project director for the Enterprise Information System Enhancement.

“We knew that (identity theft) was an issue,” Witsmen said. “It’s really increased in the last few years.”

The old ID card carried its owner’s Social Security number in the black strip on the back of the card, Witsmen said. Now, instead of Social Security numbers, the cards carry identifications that match EISE, the technology system upgrade currently under way at Eastern.

Commonly referred to as Banner, the project’s software name, EISE is another reason for the new ID cards.

The system has an integrated database that stores common information that is accessible by different departments. In the more central database, all students and staff will be identified by the numbers now used on their ID cards, Witsmen said.

The Banner system made the transition from Social Security numbers much less complex, Witsmen said.

“It helps us, basically, comply with the law. If it wasn’t for Banner, we would have had an enormous amount of work to do” to meet the terms of the new law, he said.

The re-carding event will continue in the vending and student lounge from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. today, tomorrow and Wednesday. Students and staff will need to go to the Telecommunications office in the Student Services building to replace their old IDs after 4:30 p.m. Wednesday.