Stripes of magnetizable material can be built into plastic cards, and those stripes can be magnetized to store data.
They are used on credit cards and bank cards.
Data they may store are usually account number and date of expiry of the card.
The amount of data to be stored is limited to 70 characters.
The card is passed through a reading machine and the pattern of magnetization is detected and converted into numeric data.
Advantages:
Reading data from magnetic stripe is rapid and accurate.
Disadvantages:
The cards can be easily damaged.
The magnetic pattern which represents data can be altered if the card is exposed to a strong magnet.
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