New apps on the way for CAC
There will be additional applications coming to the U.S. Department of Defense’s Common Access Card, says Bob Gilson, management and program analyst at the DOD’s defense manpower data center, at the CTST Conference, May 13-15 in Orlando, Fla. He says the agency has issued 400,000 of the new PIV-compliant cards and will add new functionality to the IDs in the coming years.
Gilson’s charge was to find new applications for the card and some new applications will be tested soon, including an e-transit application. A transit e-purse will be tested in Salt Lake City in September and October. Instead of loading an applet on to the contactless portion of the CAC the card will act as a pointer. The card’s number will refer the transit system to a funding source, such as a bank account, Gilson says. If the test goes well the system could be running with the Washington Metro.
The DOD also wants to get rid of its different e-purse options and standardize on one application for the entire department, Gilson says. He expects that to take more than two years to implement.
The agency also will be removing magnetic stripes from the cards and replacing them with an optical character recognition zone like that found on passports. DOD is also removing any trace of Social Security numbers from the IDs. ![[end]](/resources/bullet/secureidnews-4.gif)
