OT: U.S. Government Gears Up For Rapid Move To Smart Cards
Facing a presidential order to have all U.S. federal agencies issuing a standard ID card by February 2006, government officials have set an aggressive timetable for developing standards for the smart card credential. Officials have not even had time since President George Bush’s Aug. 27 order to count the number of government workers and employees of companies working for the government that will require the new ID. But William C. Barker, a program manager at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, estimates that 7 million individuals will carry the smart card IDs. NIST is responsible for developing the standards, and it is wasting no time, since the presidential order says there must be agreement on a standard by Feb. 27, 2005. Speaking Monday at Thomson Media’s CTST Public ID conference in Tysons Corner, Va., near Washington, Barker said there will be a meeting of government officials on Wednesday to discuss technology and policy alternatives, and a meeting with industry vendors the following day. By Nov. 8, he says, there will be a public draft of the standard available for 45 days of public comment. The standard is expected to draw on the experience U.S. agencies have gained with smart cards, especially the Department of Defense, which has issued 5.8 million smart card IDs in the last four years. But Barker says questions still remain over whether to include a contactless interface on the new smart card ID and about which biometrics to use to identify cardholders.
AI
