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June 2008 • Volume 13 Number 6
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Member Profile: GSA
1. The General Services Administration was the recipient of the 2008 Outstanding Smart Card Achievement (OSCA) issuing organization award for your role in implementing the Federal government's Personal Identity Verification (PIV) card program. Can you provide a brief overview of the program and the services that GSA is providing? The USAccess program was established by GSA in response to Homeland Security Presidential Directive-12 (HSPD-12). HSPD-12 requires U.S. federal agencies to adopt a standard process to establish and manage an individual’s identity through an interoperable credential to be used for physical and/or logical access to federal government facilities and information systems. When this directive was issued in 2004, federal agencies were faced with the challenge of meeting an aggressive deadline of beginning to issue cards in October 2007 without additional funding to support it. Agencies also lacked the technical expertise to select and manage the vendors and components required to build such a complicated identity management system. Seeing the need for a shared service to centralize much of the effort across government into a single, focused office, GSA established the USAccess program. USAccess offers participating agencies a managed, shared service solution that simplifies the process of procuring and maintaining PIV compliant credentials at a lower total cost to the government. For the price of a one-time card charge and a monthly maintenance fee, our 70+ federal agency customers receive “one-stop shopping:” administration, enrollment, maintenance, and (most importantly) compliance. Being a shared service, USAccess relies heavily on active customer participation – many of our enrollment centers are located at customer facilities that are shared and open to all USAccess customers. We are also focused on delivering integrated, cross-agency solutions that enhance our overall service offering. 2. How do you see HSPD-12 and FIPS 201 implementation evolving over the next year? What are the next initiatives that GSA and Federal agencies will be looking to implement? We have a ways to go towards meeting the end goal of credentialing every federal employee and contractor, but we have certainly accomplished a great deal in a short time. As the HSPD-12 program continues to mature, we see a shift in focus from credential issuance to credential usage. It’s easy to overlook how young this program is and forget that issuance is just the first step in introducing secure identity management capabilities into the federal workforce. What we’re doing now is laying the groundwork for what’s to come. The impact really becomes evident once credentials are ubiquitous and people discover that they streamline work and drive business value. Some of our customers are already thinking about maximizing card usage, but we think over the next 12 months credential usage will rise to the top of everyone’s agenda. We’re certainly excited to see the smart card vision realized for government and will be evolving our offerings to meet our customers’ long-term needs. 3. What challenges to do you see coming up in the roll-out of FIPS 201 and PIV cards in the Federal government? It seems a common theme in previous newsletters has been awareness of the capability of smart cards and their future value. We are certainly lucky in that the President and OMB have done a lot of awareness-building for us. However, exclusively mandate-driven programs seldom succeed in the long run. There has to be an inherent demand for the service, which is based on both the value of the product as well as the manner in which the service is provided. Regarding the former, we talked in the previous question about helping our customers find value in card usage. The more useful the card is, the more demand is created. Regarding the latter, that’s a matter of the USAccess program delivering outstanding service to our customers and continuing to show that we’re their long-term partner. Because we’re a shared service, there are some unique challenges that we have to overcome. Like any business, we have both large and small customers, each with different needs that we have to treat somewhat uniquely. It’s a challenge to provide attentive service to a geographically diverse customer base and guarantee a consistent experience at every service touchpoint – which runs the gauntlet from purchasing, to enrollment, to help desk support, to billing. We’re learning a tremendous amount with each passing week and are getting better as time goes on. We’re lucky to have an active and engaged customer base that has been patient during our learning curve. Without question, providing better service to our customers is our #1 goal. 4. What can the industry do to help the Federal government with FIPS 201 and PIV card deployment? We work very closely with our industry partners and as we’ve been growing they’ve been growing along with us. When we or our customers identify a new need or a change to an existing process, our industry partners (EDS and Oberthur) have done a great job of working with us to be responsive. We’ve found a great deal of success by being customer-centric and the smart card industry would be well-served to continue doing the same. Keep listening to the customer and develop new products, technologies and best-practices that will serve them well. When the customer’s happy, everyone’s happy. 5. How do you see the Alliance and the Industry Councils helping GSA? External organizations like the Smart Card Alliance and other councils have played a key role in enabling our success by increasing awareness and socializing the smart card vision. The Smart Card Alliance and other councils also provide a critical forum for industry professionals to collaborate on key issues and tackle tough problems. Our staff contributes to many of these groups – it’s also a key resource for us to stay current and connected so we can serve our customers better.
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This month, Smart Card Talk spoke with Stephen P. Duncan, Customer Project Manager, GSA USAccess Program.
