Smart cards: the bad and good news
Even though a mandate issued by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) requires that all federal employees and contractors be issued their own Personal Identification Verification (PIV) card by October 2008, actual issuance of cards thus far can be measured in the mere thousands, rather than the millions, according to knowledgeable insiders.
"The agencies don’t seem to see the value," explained Roger Roehr, a manager of access control and video systems at Tyco International. "They see it as a $100 ID card."
The General Services Administration (GSA), which offers a managed service that issues cards on behalf of other federal departments, has only issued a few thousand cards to date, said Roehr. And the Department of Interior, which originally planned to offered similar managed services, has shut down its smart card program.
The October 2008 deadline for full compliance among the federal departments is looming, but few observers expect the OMB to begin cracking heads anytime soon. "I haven’t paid much attention to the deadlines because I don’t see the government paying much attention," Roehr added.
He’s not the only person to notice the sluggish pace in Washington to implement what is widely known as either the Homeland Security Presidential Directive-12 (nicknamed HSPD-12) initiative, or the FIPS-201 program, which is shorthand for Federal Information Processing Standard-201.
A subcommittee of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform is scheduled to hold a hearing titled Federal Security: ID Cards and Background Checks on April 9.
"The hearing will release a new Government Accountability Office (GAO) report finding that the program is incurring high costs but providing little benefit to date," said a subcommittee notice.
The issuance of PIV cards may be slow as molasses in federal government offices, but the parallel roll-out of Transportation Worker Identification Credential (TWIC) cards has surprised observers with how quick it is spreading nationwide. Every few days, two or three additional seaports are announcing in the Federal Register that they have begun enrolling transportation workers --longshoremen, mechanics, truck drivers, etc. -- who toil at their respective ports.
"TWIC is going gangbusters," noted Roehr. Planners originally thought that approximately 100,000 TWIC cards might be issued along the Gulf Coast, he noted, but that number is now likely to approach 300,000.
Similarly, a new category of smart cards, known as the Airport Credential Interoperability Solution, or ACIS, is being developed for airport workers. These cards would not be issued by a federal government department or agency, but by the local airport authorities themselves.
Finally, yet another card, known as the First Responder Access Credential, or FRAC, is planned for issuance to millions of first responders nationwide.
All in all, the wheels on the HSPD-12 program are turning slowly, but they’re still turning.
"As much as we’d like the change to smart cards to be revolutionary, it’s going to be evolutionary," concluded Roehr.
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