Smart Card Talk

December 2007 • Volume 12 Number 12

Feature of the Month

The Alliance Industry Councils – Year in Review

The Smart Card Alliance launched its first industry councils in 2004. Establishing member-driven industry councils was a key strategic initiative to accelerate smart card and related technology adoption within specific industry segments and attract new users and members to the Alliance.

Over the past three years, councils have been an unquestioned success! In 2007, over 380 individuals from more than 130 organizations participated in at least one council, with over 60% of members involved in council activities. Councils have been very successful in responding to issues arising in the media, developing industry responses on key government initiatives, and proactively developing educational and outreach material targeting specific vertical markets.

All told, in 2007, councils published eight white papers, developed industry statements or responses on ten different market or government initiatives, fielded two web seminars and one in-person briefing, and issued 16 press releases on council deliverables and/or industry positions – quite a set of accomplishments for these member-driven groups.

This month's feature article takes a quick look at each council to give highlights of the past year's activities.

Contactless Payments Council

The Contactless Payments Council is focused on facilitating the adoption of contactless credit and debit payments in the U.S. through education programs for consumers, merchants and issuers. The Council published two white papers in 2007 – one on proximity mobile payments in August and a merchant implementation guide in July. The Council also focused attention on developing an extensive question-and-answer document on contactless payments covering a wide range of topics from general market information to security and merchant implementation.

The Council fielded two successful web seminars for issuers and merchants with presentations from Wells Fargo, KeyBank, BB&T, Arby's Restaurant Group, Cadbury Schweppes, Jack in the Box, Aberdeen Group and IBM. Between the two web seminars, 600 individuals attended the events live and over 200 more watched the archived replay.

Since the Alliance Annual Conference in October, the Council has launched four new work groups working on topics related to consumer education and awareness, merchant business case, proximity mobile payments and security. The work groups have started a number of research initiatives and will be publishing new information in early 2008.

Healthcare Council

Focusing on the use of smart cards in the healthcare industry, the Healthcare Council published one white paper on the benefits of smart cards to payers, providers and patients and a detailed profile of the Mount Sinai Medical Center Personal Health Card.

With a newly elected Steering Committee that includes Gemalto, IBM, Mount Sinai Medical Center, Siemens, SMART Association, TrustBearer, and Wisconsin Physicians Service Insurance Corporation, the group is now defining a set of outreach activities to educate the market on the benefits of smart cards in healthcare applications and to increase industry stakeholder participation in the Council.

Identity Council

The Identity Council focused on public policy and government outreach to position smart cards in several high visibility government programs. By developing white papers and high impact statements and responses, the group was effective in establishing the industry position in several controversial programs. 2007 deliverables include:

Three white papers on industry best practices for using RF technology in identity applications and on the differences between RFID and contactless smart card technology.
An extensive identity and smart card technology glossary.
Formal responses to the Federal government's REAL ID Act Notice of Proposed Rule-Making and NIST's position on the use of RFID for the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative passport card.
An industry statement countering the use of RFID in enhanced driver's license pilots. This statement is being used in the Council's government communications to educate media in key states about the benefits of smart card technology for REAL ID driver's licenses.

In July, the Council collaborated with the Secure ID Coalition to deliver a well-received briefing at The Capitol on securing identities. The briefing had 51 attendees, including 18 from Congressional offices, committees or supporting government agencies.

The Council is currently continuing its state government outreach and starting new white papers on online identity authentication – one focusing on using the PIV model for enterprise access control and another focusing on improving trust in Internet identities.

Physical Access Council

With FIPS 201 implementation underway throughout the Federal government, the Physical Access Council focused on providing practical guidance on the use of the Personal Identity Verification (PIV) card with physical access control systems (PACS). In 2007, the Council published two white papers -- an extensive set of guidelines for PACS migration options for FIPS 201 compliance, developed in collaboration with the Security Industry Association, the Open Security Exchange and the International Biometric Industry Association, and a best practices document describing how to optimize PIV card transaction time and user experience with PACS.

In addition, the Council developed four industry responses, commenting on the National Maritime Security Advisory Committee TWIC biometric reader recommendation, the NIST request for comments for fingerprint match-on-card evaluation, the Interagency Security Committee HSPD-12 Physical Security Migration Strategy Report, and the NIST draft SP 800-73-2. The Identity and Physical Access Councils also worked together to submit industry comments on draft FIPS 140-3 specifications.

The Council is now collaborating with the RTCA Special Committee 207 to provide comments on a standard, DO-230b, which addresses integrated airport access systems.

Transportation Council

The Transportation Council launched two white paper projects in 2007 to look at new strategies for transit fare payment that leverage connections between the financial and transit industries. Both white papers on co-branded, multi-application transit cards and solutions to serve the unbanked or underbanked consumer will be published in early 2008.

The Transportation Council also held a successful transportation industry briefing event in February, which drew over 60 participants from the transit, parking and financial industries. The Council will be holding its third annual council event in February 2008, with the Contactless Payments Council joining for the first time to foster increased collaboration between the two industries.

Cross Council Activities

As the Councils mature and grow, the topics that they cover have more overlap and the organization has increasing need for documented practices and processes. The Alliance Board of Directors established the Committee on Councils and Chapters that includes all Council chairs, as well as Board members. This Committee will discuss and set cross-council policy for management of activities and will provide the structure for cross-council collaboration.

Council Results

Council activities are noticed in the market. The Smart Card Alliance positions and activities are widely covered in the media across all vertical markets, including both business and trade press. The Alliance web site gets over 77,000 visitors on average per month – accessing news, product directories and catalogs and publications. Council publications are widely distributed both from the Alliance site (where over 19,600 publications are downloaded every month) and from member sites.

Conclusions

Council activities have produced results for the industry. The Alliance is looked to for guidance on smart card implementations in identity, access and payments markets and is recognized as the "go to" organization for cross-industry collaboration. Alliance positions have kept discussions open on the selection of technology for key programs. And the Alliance is routinely asked for commentary on key technology and policy issues – both from the media and the government.

As Randy Vanderhoof so aptly wrote in the September newsletter, the Alliance has moved from observing and reporting on the industry to actively influencing and moving the industry forward. This success is due in large part to the tremendous contributions from the many members who volunteer to lead and contribute to the Alliance and council activities. The industry is being led and shaped by the combined voice of the Alliance members who participate in the highly-active and highly-productive industry councils.

Council activities are showcased each month in the Smart Card Talk "From the Alliance Office" article. If you are an Alliance member and would like to participate in an industry council, contact the Council officers or Cathy Medich (cmedich@smartcardalliance.org). Council publications and member information can be found at http://www.smartcardalliance.org/pages/activities-councils.