Smart Card Alliance Identity Council Makes Announcements

Sep 23, 2008 3:47 PM

The Smart Card Alliance Identity Council raised awareness of the security issues surrounding citizen-facing U.S. government identity initiatives last year, including enhanced driver's licenses and border crossing documents. The Council recently announced new officers and steering committee, last year's accomplishments and upcoming projects.

"The Identity Council has been successful this year in pinpointing threats to identity security, and showing how the correctly chosen technology can solve these issues," says Randy Vanderhoof, executive director of the Smart Card Alliance.

The Identity Council was active in developing educational resources describing the benefits that smart card technology can bring to states for improved security and cost-efficiency in the delivery of state-operated programs, such as driver's licenses that comply with the REAL ID Act. These benefits were outlined in the white paper, "Smart Card Technology: The Right Choice for REAL ID," published last January. Additionally, the Council reached out to state governors about the technology choices for enhanced driver's licenses, and held a congressional briefing on the topic.

The Identity Council also reviewed the technology for border crossing identity documents and published the white paper, "The Consequences to Citizen Privacy and National Security in Adopting RFID Technology for Border Crossing Identity Documents" in October 2007.

"The Identity Council provides educational material that helps organizations select the appropriate technology for new identity initiatives in order to protect individuals' identities and private information," says Chair Stephen P. Howard, Thales e-Security. "Recent data breaches illustrate that the proper use of technology to secure identities is important in both enterprises and government."

This year Council projects include developing white papers that discuss how the U.S. government's Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 201 can be used as the model for enterprise identity programs and emergency response official credentialing programs and publishing case studies showcasing organizations that have implemented secure identity systems with smart card technology.

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