information from a plurality of pre existing identification cards and utilize at least a portion of the information to create an incident specific credential for each person responding to an incident the portable data terminal is configured to read the incident specific credentials and communicate with the check in computer system to provide current assignments of personnel responding to an incident such that the personnel can be tracked application_number US 89285704 A description according to various embodiments of the present invention incident specific and time limited credentials may be created to identify various levels of authority with respect to 1 attendance at a site or incident either global or sector specific 2 performance of specific functions and 3 priority of treatment according to one embodiment of the present invention incident specific identifications ids credentials are created in the field by copying data from pre existing machine readable ids that the person or victim has brought to the site e g a driver 39 s license a military id a fire trax tag etc according to another embodiment of the present invention u201c authorities u201d and or u201c time limits u201d may be incorporated into the credential e g in human readable text and or in a machine readable media it should be appreciated that the u201c time limits u201d may also be thought of as an authorization according to yet another embodiment of the present invention a biometric is incorporated into the id e g a person 39 s photograph to positively identify the person for example when a firefighter shows up at a staging area of a major incident the firefighter 39 s id e g including a pdf417 bar code is scanned and pertinent.