Plasma Donation Center Donor ID Check-In with PDF417

The Identity Data Problem for plasma donation centers

Donors visit often, and centers must confirm identity at every visit while keeping lines moving. Teams also need to keep a readable barcode separate from a verified person or authentic card; mixing the two creates compliance and product risk.

Deterministic Barcode Parsing with Human Confirmation

Scan the donor’s license or state ID at the kiosk, match it to the donor record, and send mismatches to staff review. StructOCR’s PDF417 API decodes the barcode on the back of US driver licenses and state ID cards and parses the AAMVA record without asking a generative model to reconstruct unreadable values. Both licenses and non-driver state ID cards are accepted; document_kind records which one was presented. Donor eligibility and screening decisions remain with the center’s medical staff and systems.

Workflow Applications

Server-Side PDF417 Integration

Send the complete card-back image from a protected backend. This example selects fields relevant to plasma donation centers and treats HTTP 422 as a retake or review state.

import base64
import os
import requests

with open("card-back.jpg", "rb") as image_file:
    image = base64.b64encode(image_file.read()).decode("ascii")

response = requests.post(
    "https://api.structocr.com/v1/driver-license-pdf417",
    headers={"x-api-key": os.environ["STRUCTOCR_API_KEY"]},
    json={"img": image},
    timeout=30,
)

if response.status_code == 422:
    body = response.json()
    print("Retake or review:", body.get("error"), body.get("capture_issue"))
else:
    response.raise_for_status()
    data = response.json()["data"]
    print("given_names:", data.get("given_names"))
    print("surname:", data.get("surname"))
    print("date_of_birth:", data.get("date_of_birth"))
    print("document_number:", data.get("document_number"))

{
  "success": true,
  "data": {
    "type": "drivers_license",
    "document_kind": "id_card",
    "source": "pdf417",
    "country_code": "USA",
    "region": "CA",
    "document_number": "SAMPLE1234",
    "surname": "SAMPLE",
    "given_names": "ALEX MORGAN",
    "first_name": "ALEX",
    "middle_name": "MORGAN",
    "sex": "X",
    "date_of_birth": "1990-01-15",
    "date_of_issue": "2025-01-15",
    "date_of_expiry": "2030-01-15",
    "address": "100 EXAMPLE AVE",
    "city": "SAMPLE CITY",
    "postal_code": "00000",
    "vehicle_class": null,
    "restrictions": null,
    "endorsements": null,
    "document_discriminator": "SAMPLE-DISCRIMINATOR",
    "issuer_identification_number": null,
    "aamva_version": 10,
    "jurisdiction_version": 0
  }
}