The Smart Card Alliance opened the National Center for Advanced Payments and Identity Security, a new training center in Crystal City, Va.; Gemalto was selected by Gabon’s Department of Homeland Security to supply and implement a border and visa management system.

As credential issuers want to get a longer lifespan out of the documents card durability is becoming an important factor when choosing new materials. Federal and state agencies, as well as other high-value issuers, want to get as much out of a document as possible, and a 10-year lifespan seems the ultimate objective. To achieve this issuers are moving away from 100% PVC cards – the cheapest and most common type – to composite cards made up of a variety of materials, often including polyesters, polycarbonate or Teslin substrate.

The Smart Card Alliance announced its new board and seven-member executive committee to lead and provide guidance to the organization; MorphoTrust has won a contract with the Department of Defense to provide identity verification solutions; Gallagher released its latest products and updates to the security market, including a mobile reader.

Identity can be asserted in many different ways. But the most common way an individual asserts an identity is by handing an ID card over for visual inspection. But making sure it’s not counterfeit is difficult and playing an important role in anti-counterfeiting efforts are the materials that make up the document.

Weekly news briefs detailing new reports on the fingerprint sensor and smart card markets as well as details on the Norwegian Police PKI project and improvements in fingerpint spoofing from NexID.

The U.S. Treasury had made progress but a lot of work has to be done for PIV compliance. Some 15% are still without credentials, 21% of facilities have PIV-enabled physical access control system and only 5% use the PIV for logical access.

More electronic passport deployments, the move to EMV and the ever-popular SIM are still responsible for the vast majority of smart cards shipped across the globe.

Advanced Card Systems Ltd. (ACS) has been chosen as one of Forbes Asia’s Best Under a Billion companies in 2014. This is the second time that ACS has been included in the list, the first being in 2010.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory, a technology research facility for the U.S. Department of Energy, is deploying a mix of PIV and CIV credentials throughout its Tennessee facilities.

Lars Suneborn has joined the Smart Card Alliance as the director of training programs. In this role he will lead and expand education, training and certification initiatives on smart card technology for the alliance.