Ohio will become only the second state to issue electronic benefits cards to SNAP or food stamp recipients with computer chips in them, after Gov. Mike DeWine signed a law requiring that this week. And it’s something advocates for low-income Ohioans have long pushed for.
Senate Bill 315, known as the Enhanced Cybersecurity for SNAP Act, passed unanimously in the Senate and eight Democrats and two Republicans in the House voting against it.
SNAP cards have been susceptible to skimming devices installed at food retailers by criminals trying to steal benefits, said Ohio Association of Food Banks Executive Director Joree Novotny. She said Ohio's cards are more than a decade behind other payment technology.
"They're magnetic strip cards, and they're very susceptible to fraud unfortunately," Novotny said. "So we've had tens of thousands of Ohio households that have been victimized by criminal fraudsters and had their benefits stolen because those cards aren't secure."
She said not only are Ohio's cards not as secure as those with chips, there's no way to recover benefits after they are stolen.
“Families were coming to pay for their groceries and finding out that all of their benefits have been taken from their card, and there was no mechanism for those benefits to be replaced," Novotny said. "So what this will do is implement a technology solution to protect those cards from being susceptible to that.”
Novotny said it's hard to measure how many people have lost benefits this way, but it's estimated at least 34,000 Ohio households had had benefits stolen in 2023 and 2024.
SB 315 doesn’t take effect until October, but Ohio Job and Family Services expects to start the process of hiring a vendor to produce the cards this summer and have a decision by the end of the year.
Along with requiring chips in SNAP cards, the bill also mandates electronic verification for home health care providers paid by Medicaid.
