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GCN Home > 03/19/07 issue

HSPD-12’s final stretch

Interagency groups try to clear HSPD-12’s technical, policy issues

By Jason Miller, GCN Staff

Federal agency working groups over the next six to 12 months will work on the final steps toward full implementation of Homeland Security Presidential Directive-12.

And those last challenges, about 20 percent of the total job, will determine whether the smart identification cards will be more than expensive flash passes or if they will be what the administration envisioned when it issued the mandate in August 2004—interoperable cards used for physical and logical access.

“The smallest issues are hardest to solve,” said Chris Niedermayer, chairman of the Office of Management and Budget’s HSPD-12 Executive Steering Committee and the Agriculture Department’s associate CIO. “Those kinds of things are starting to become more visible. We have been working to create an environment where trust can be established and maintained.”

While agencies were scrambling to meet the Oct. 27 deadline to begin issuing smart identification cards, OMB tabled many of these issues, but now the ESC and the Government Smart Card Interagency Advisory Board (IAB) will start addressing them, a government official said.

Officials say OMB has been doing a good job bringing people together to begin looking at issues such as whether the National Agency Check with Inquiries (NACI) belongs on the HSPD-12 card; whether the cardholder user identifier (CHUID) is good enough to cover all federal employees, contractors, military service members, and possible state and local officials and first responders; and whether the government can agree on a fingerprint capture standard.

Mike Butler, chairman of the IAB and chief of smart-card programs for the Defense Department’s Access Card Program Office, said some of these issues will work themselves out over time, and the IAB and other private-sector organizations will address the others together.

While momentum for HSPD-12 has waned since last fall, observers in and out of government disagree over whether agency energy behind the entire initiative still is measurable. Agencies have issued fewer than 1,000 cards since October, and the General Services Administration, through its Managed Service Office, has stopped issuing cards except in Washington, D.C.

GSA plans to re-award its MSO contract this month, and officials believe that will help reinvigorate agencies to meet HSPD-12.

More news on related topics: Authentication / Identity Management, Homeland Security, IT Management



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