Executive Director's Letter

Dear members and friends of the Alliance,

One of the great privileges of my job is when I am called upon to serve as a traveling ambassador for the North American smart card industry.  In doing so, I get the opportunity to pontificate to all of my foreign listeners about the successes we are experiencing in the growth of smart card usage in government ID, contactless payments, transportation, enterprise security, mobile telecom, and healthcare.  I carry the collective achievements of my constituents proudly like badges of honor that I can take little credit for achieving but will proudly show off to anyone who will listen.

My most recent opportunity to wear the VIP honors of my country came when I represented the Smart Card Alliance at the World IC Summit in Beijing, China earlier this month.  The event organizer, Frank Xu, executive director of the Smart Card Forum of China, is someone I have befriended through our mutual participation within ISCAN, the international network of smart card organizations, to which we both belong.  Frank began planning this international summit two years ago and wanted to target this year, the year before the Beijing Summer Olympic Games in 2008, as the year to assemble the world's smart card organizations together at one event.  The goal was to show the Chinese smart card industry that we all are part of the same global market and that the opportunities and obstacles to overcome are no different for China than they are in the rest of the world.  I was joined by my ISCAN colleagues from Canada, Europe, and Asia Pacific and representatives from GlobalPlatform, EMVCo, and NIST who provided the standards viewpoint for international smart card adoption.

Member Profile

This month, Smart Card Talk spoke with Roger Roehr, Manager of the Government Vertical at Tyco Fire & Security’s Access Control and Video Systems business unit. Roger is responsible for driving product development in Tyco Fire & Security’s access control, video, and integrated systems to meet the specific needs of government customers and related markets.

Roger’s core competencies are in the design, installation, and maintenance of electronic physical security, security video and access control systems. He is actively involved in developing standards for the integration of biometrics and smart card technology in Physical Access Control Systems (PACS). Previously he was involved in developing, testing, and implementing a wide range of integration and consulting engagements for identity management and electronic physical security.

Roger was a member of the team that delivered the GSA’s FIPS 201 shared service solution. He led the team that developed the GSA Approved Products List (APL) test harness and NIST Special Publication 800-96 and was the technical lead for physical access control on the Transportation Works Identification Credential (TWIC) smart card identity program. Roger developed the medium security method that was published in the Technical Implementation Guidance: Smart Card Enabled Physical Access Control Systems by the Government Interagency Advisory Board (IAB). Roger also held the position of senior system integrator for the Department of State’s roll out of smart card enabled PASC.

Prior to joining Tyco Fire and Security, Roger held a number of engineering and technical positions at BearingPoint, M.C. Dean, Battelle Memorial Labs, Siemens Building Technology and Security Technology Group. Roger served in the Air Force Security Police.  Roger is also the current chair of the Smart Card Alliance Physical Access Council.

Feature of the Month 

REAL IDs ≠ Secure Credentials

Governments around the world are implementing new identity credentialing programs to improve the accuracy of identity verification for a wide variety of applications.  These programs are leveraging numerous advances in both chip and security technologies to create secure identity credentials -- credentials that implement security techniques, such as mutual authentication, cryptography and verification of message integrity, to protect identity information throughout the application and, by design, protect the privacy of the credential holder.

A widespread trend, cutting across all applications and all continents, is the increasing use of microcontroller-based smart card technology for secure identity credentials.  Smart card technology makes credentials more secure, better protects identities and privacy, more tightly ties the credential to its owner and enables them to work with information systems and networks.

At odds with these other identity initiatives, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has proposed technology for REAL ID driver's licenses that will not result in secure credentials for U.S. citizens.  Once implemented by states, REAL ID credentials will become high-profile targets for identity thieves and fraudsters, since they will be used to establish identity, the right to drive and the right to travel.  These factors make it all the more crucial that REAL ID credentials be implemented with technology that protects both the information stored on the credential and the privacy of the U.S. citizens.

So what's wrong with the REAL ID technology selection?

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