Government ID, Smart Cards, Identification and Authentication

UK police force buys smart card keyboards

Thursday, June 11, 2009

ZF Electronics Ltd - formerly Cherry Electrical Products Ltd – was awarded a contract for 8,000 of its smart card keyboard products which are being used as part of an ambitious security project being undertaken by the West Midlands Police in the UK. The company’s G83-6644LUAGB-2 smart card keyboard was an part of the tender documentation for the Gateway Program.

Smart cards are being issued to every member of staff in the organization and the smart card keyboards will be used in more than 150 different police buildings across the region. All personnel can use their smart card to logon to their computer and access applications with Single Sign-On, and in 38 sites staff will additionally use their smart card to gain access into the buildings.


ZF Electronics’ Cherry G83-6644LUAGB-2 keyboard incorporates a class-2 chip card reader. It is approved for digital signatures, PKI and Single Sign-On and supports USB 2.0 interconnection, secure PIN entry, and CT-Api.

The Cherry keyboards have been supplied via Nottingham-based Ergo Computing, which has been the principal computer hardware contractor for West Midlands Police since early 2006, supplying desktop and notebook PCs to the force. Each G83-6644LUAGB-2 works in conjunction with software from ActivIdentity. [end] 

Key Source International (KSI) has announced the release of a new line of computer keyboards that offer a number of security input options.

Among the various embedded options for securely authenticating one’s identity in the keyboard, called the KSI-1700, are biometrics, RFID, HID and contactless smart cards as well as technology called SonarLocID, which automatically locks a user’s workstation when they walk away.

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A 27-year-old man posing as a Harvard undergraduate student stayed in the dorms, ate in the school cafeteria and chatted with many Harvard students via Facebook before being found out by campus police. He was cited for trespassing and using a false identification card.

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The first draft of the American Bar Association Task Force Report tentatively titled “Solving the Legal Challenges of Online Identity Management” has been posted on the Task Force Web site for review and comment.

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Just as the University of Georgia police were ending an investigation into a sophisticated fake ID ring, another student dealing in fake driver licenses came to light. The original ring, apparently run by students at the University of Georgia and Gainesville State College, had distributed more than 1,000 fake IDs to students at the two schools.

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A Chinese couple who used stolen identity information from students at Simon Fraser University in Canada to obtain TransLink U-Passes, have been deported.

Siyuan Gu and Jing Wang pleaded guilty in December to using the forged documents.

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Corporate Art Force, a provider of art procurement services, announced it will be applying RFID tags on all artwork placed at client sites. The company’s portfolio includes over 13,000 pieces of artwork at more than 100 client sites in 40 different states.

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