Thin flexible cards, the subject of this International Standard, are used to automate the controls for access to goods or services such as mass transit, highway toll systems, car parks, vouchers, stored value, etc. For these applications, data can be written and/or read by machines using various recording techniques such as magnetic stripe, optical character recognition (OCR), bar code, etc. This part of ISO/IEC 15457 specifies the test methods and procedures required to carry out measurements of the magnetic stripe and encoding characteristics of thin flexible cards. Many of the standard methods available for checking physical properties of base materials are intended to be applied to samples cut from continuous material or large sheets. However, all test methods given herein, unless explicitly stated otherwise, apply to finished cards. The test methods described are to be performed on separate samples. It is not intended that any individual card should pass through more than one test procedure, unless explicitly stated. Acceptance criteria do not form part of this standard.