Government ID, Smart Cards, Identification and Authentication

House passes cybersecurity bill

Monday, February 8, 2010

The U.S. House of Representatives passed the “Cybersecurity Enhancement Act of 2010” aimed at improving cybersecurity research, development and technical standards.

The proposed law would create an office for a national coordinator for the networking and information technology research and development program. The law would also establish a program to develop and support identity management efforts.


The bill states that a program should be set up that would support the development of standards around identity management, with a particular focus on health care.

The new director would have to:

  • Improve interoperability among identity management technologies;

  • Strengthen authentication methods of identity management systems;

  • Improve privacy protection in identity management systems, including health information technology systems, through authentication and security protocols; and

  • Improve the usability of identity management systems.

The house passed the bill 422-5 and is now going to the U.S. Senate. [end] 

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.

read more »

The Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) is teaming up with BART and SamTrans to host a series of sign up events as a push to transition more youths from paper tickets passes to the reloadable Clipper transit fare card.

read more »

The Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC), the state run bus service in Maharashtra, India, has adopted a smart card ticketing system to replace its existing paper passes for transit buses.

read more »

The Philippine House of Representatives has passed a bill that would require the use of biometric authentication of individuals for voter registration as well as the actual voting process in the country, according to a NewsBytes Philippines article.

read more »

The Province of British Columbia, the University of British Columbia and the Alma Mater Society have negotiated a plan to prevent students from dropping out of courses but still keeping their subsidized U-Pass, according to The Ubyssey.

read more »

The Ralph Carr Judicial Center in Denver, Colorado has selected AMAG Technology’s Symmetry Homeland V7 Security Management System,to provide integrated access control and security management solutions from HID Global.

read more »