From The Comics Beat:

Holy crap, SDCC getting medieval on the badge thing!

Comic-Con has just announced a change to their terms and conditions regarding badges. To wit, you can now be strip searched and withheld for four days if you have a bootleg badge have your badge inspected, be asked for ID and other fairly real means of validating a badge.

SDCC may perform any of the following validation of badges on entry to any area of the convention. These measures are an effort to prevent illegal badge duplication and unauthorized reselling. SDCC may scan the bar code, require a photo ID that matches the name on the badge, scan RFID embedded in the badge, and examine the badge with other technological and/or physical methods to verify authenticity of the badge and holder. Before leaving any registration area please make sure that the name on the badge matches your identification.


Well, this is going to harsh the mellows of a lot of people (myself included) who played fast and loose with the “let me borrow your badge for a while” kind of thing.

We’ve heard on the grapevine that some other big cons are also getting a lot tighter about press and pro badges.

This is not fun jolly con times any more, people. It’s the Super Bowl.

I don't have a problem with it personally. It's become a real pain in the butt to obtain a badge these days (not to mention increasingly expensive), so I'm glad they're attempting to cut down on the fakes.