Is this the end of magnetic tape?

Are there any benefits to keeping magnetic stripe cards or tokens?

“No,” says Sue Walnut, product manager for intelligent transportation systems at Fix Technology, bluntly.

She claims that there are now many different ways to validate a train ticket – for example, QR codes displayed on phone screens, tickets printed at home, and contactless prepaid cards – making the need to keep magnetic strip technology less than ever.

But magnetic-stripe tickets and entry cards fit easily into credit-card holders in wallets and bags. The new paper tickets being tested by Northern and other rail companies are bulkier. “They’re a bit unwieldy and annoying,” says Ms. Walnut.

Magnetic stripe has been around for so long partly because it is relatively cheap, and the specifications for readers were set decades ago, says Stephen Cranfield of Barnes International, which makes magnetic stripe testing equipment.

“If you took your card today and used it in a magnetic stripe reader from 1970, it would still be able to read it,” he says.

His company has worked on a variety of systems — including one designed to allow kidney failure patients to use a magnetic stripe card to set up their dialysis machine.

Although the magnetic stripes are most common in dark brown or black, they can come in a whole range of colours. “They’re very common in China, actually – gold stripes,” explains Mr Cranfield.

But now that US banks are finally switching to chip-and-PIN cards, it’s clear that the market for magnetic stripes is dwindling.

Professor Murdoch says that while magnetic stripe technology is well established, it is “inevitable” that it will gradually disappear. One downside, he points out, is that cases of magnetic stripe failure and fraud are now well known. Newer technologies, while theoretically safer, may be more sophisticated – and therefore more vulnerable to exploitation by criminals using new methods.

Sometimes members of the public contact Professor Murdoch when they have difficulty proving that they have been defrauded by their banks.

“If the transaction was done using magnetic stripe, it’s very easy to say someone copied it,” says Professor Murdoch, pointing out the paradox. “But if the transaction is one of the more secure methods – it’s much harder.”