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Feds Start Small on Smart IDs

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the small-start-leads-to-big-ending dept.

jcatcw writes "Some government employees will be getting smart ID cards beginning this week. The unfunded mandate to have all employees and contractors use Personal Identity Verification (PIV) cards is part of Homeland Security Presidential Directive 12. The U.S. General Services Administration is providing enrollment centers that can verify the identities of employees, fingerprint and photograph the workers, and issue PIV cards to them. The deadline for getting cards to all employees and contractors is the end of September 2008."

1 of 92 comments (clear)

  1. The Actual Program Information (imagine that) by dnadig · · Score: 5, Informative

    In case anyone cares to actually LEARN what it is rather than just ramble on about how horrible the world is:

    http://csrc.nist.gov/piv-program/index.html

    It's a very sensible document (and HSPD12 is just the mandate, FIPS201 is the implementation). All it does (ALL) is say "agencies need to have a process in place to make sure Joe is Joe, and they need to give him a card that says he's Joe, and it needs to look like this."

    It doesn't actually go further than that. It outlines an interoperable infrastructure based on dirt simple, well understood, highly tested smart card stock, lays out minimum requirements for readers, and puts a system certification process in place. The "tech" part of this is really quite simple and boring for anyone who's spent more than 10 minutes thinking about PKI or smartcards.

    The much much more important part of this is the credentialling part (PIV-1) which has been in place for a year. This establishes clear lines of responsibility and clear processes for actually establishing that Joe is Joe, and at least an attempt to make sure that, say, the Defense Manpower Data Center is using the same process as the Janitor's closet in the Department of Education. This is a GOOD THING people. It's about breaking down silos and creating (gasp) an open standard for strong(er) authentication.

    That's right folks, an open interoperability standard sponsored by the US of A. Wanna make sure your corporate ID is just a wee bit futureproof? Read the FIPS201 docs and mimic the data model and tech requirements.

    OK, back to the sarcasm laced punditry. Thank's for playing.