Smart Card Alliance provides initiative updates
05 December, 2012
category: Government, Smart Cards
At the 11th Annual Smart Card Alliance Government Conference last week, the Smart Card Alliance (SCA) provided updates on many of its initiatives.
The SCA said government agencies are making progress with implementing physical and logical access control with PIV credentials. At the conference, FEMA, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Defense spoke about their initiatives and lessons they learned along the way.
Smart card-based PIV and PIV-I credentials continue to be issued to members of the Transglobal Secure Collaboration program, with the program recently reaching its one millionth card milestone.
The National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace, a proposed U.S. identity ecosystem, also gave updates on four of the pilots awarded for it. These programs range from using mobile-based authentication, including biometrics, for online authentication to expanding Windows Live ID credentials for more secure state services.
The National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) spoke about its efforts to provide a standard, unified identity access and management framework. This will enable states to have a measure of consistency and will help build trust in the creation of trusted identities.
Finally, the conference experienced debate among mobile devices and the best method for securely storing identity credentials on the devices. The SCA also has a cross-council project in the works to create guidance for supporting PIV credentials in mobile devices.