Developed in the late 1980s by the Drexler Corp., the LaserCard could store 2.8 megabytes of data as pits in a reflective surface, much like a CD. Data was written by a laser beam, which formed a pit in the reflective surface. The card was read by passing it under a lower-powered laser. The pit appeared darker than the highly specular reflective surface, since it reflected the light diffusely (Drexler 1981). The difference was detected by a photocell. The pattern of lighter and darker spots encoded binary data. Once written, the data could not be altered, but additional data could be written later in unwritten areas of the card (Drexler 1982).

Although LaserCards saw some success as ID cards (HID Global 2012), by the mid-2010s they were overtaken by smart cards and RFID cards