If students plan to use fake IDs in State College bars, they should know even the best of those IDs won't get very far, area bar managers say.

But some local bar managers disagree about the best way to catch the sham cards.

A few area bars, such as Crowbar, 420 E. College Ave., and The Saloon, 101 Heister St., use ID scanners.

"On any given night there's room for error," David Wells, director of operations for the bars' management company, Dante's Inc., said. "Using scanners eliminates guesswork."

Others in charge of supervising the inspection of IDs disagree.

Kevin Franklin, bar manager of the Gingerbread Man, 130 Hiester St., said he has considered using ID scanners.

"But they can make people lazy, and then they don't scrutinize the IDs closely," he said.

Chad Smith, manager of Phyrst, 111 1/2 E. Beaver Ave., says the scanners are a good idea, although his bar does not use them.

"They add another level of protection, which is needed, especially in State College where there are a lot of people trying to sneak into bars," Smith said.

The ID scanners might not be foolproof, though.

"All [the scanners] tell you is if the ID is valid," Franklin said. "They don't tell you if it matches up with the person."

Another problem with the scanners is that they do not read all IDs, Franklin said. "New Jersey is the biggest one that it can't read, and it's one of the more frequent IDs we see," Franklin said. "New Jersey is the number one fake ID we catch."

Jana Alvino, the marketing manager of Intelli-Check, Inc., a company that makes ID scanners, acknowledged that the scanners cannot verify all IDs. There are eight states that do not have encoded IDs, meaning the cards do not have magnetic strips with information on them, Alvino said. New Jersey is one of those states.

The price tag of the ID scanners also is a factor in whether some bars use them.

"One main reason we don't have a scanner is the cost," Smith said.

Each ID-Check machine, made by Intelli-Check, costs about $2,500, with one year of updates included, Alvino said. After that, the establishment must buy additional updates because states might change the encoding or add encoding to identification cards.

Another concern some patrons have is that ID scanners might collect information.

Wells said patrons should not worry about the information the scanners read.

"The majority of the ones we use just see if you're 21 or over," Wells said. "Some of them log what time you go in."

Alvino said the basic ID-Check machines collect "due diligence information," meaning they read the person's date of birth, the ID's expiration date and the state it's from.

"The encoding information is stored in the unit, so the owner can prove the patrons are of age," Alvino said.

Some owners choose to add software to the units to collect more data, Alvino said. "A lot of states put the stuff that's on the front of the ID on the back [in the magnetic strip]," Alvino said. This information may include the name, address, height, weight and eye color of the ID owner, depending on each state's standards.

Sometimes businesses use this information for promotions, Alvino said.

"They might use the addresses to send out postcards or other information to patrons," he said.

Even though there are some drawbacks to using the ID scanners, many businesses find that they are important, especially when the possibility of people using fake IDs is high, like in a college town, Alvino said.