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September 2007 • Volume 12 Number 9 |
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Executive Director's Letter Dear members and friends of the Alliance, There comes a time in every successful organization when they make the transition from observing what is happening around them to starting to make things happen. I think the Smart Card Alliance has turned that corner - moving from simply reporting what is happening in the smart card industry to effectively influencing and changing the industry. One example of this transition occurred this spring and summer when I was selected to represent the smart card industry and participate in a government-only FIPS 201 Migration Task Force. This task force was sanctioned by the Inter-agency Security Committee (ISC) to report to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the Executive Branch's oversight office for all government spending programs, on the strategy for federal agencies to migrate to use new federal ID cards in their physical security systems. My role on this task force was to interface between the government representatives and the smart card industry, the security industry, and the international standards bodies and to provide guidance for federal security officers to begin utilizing the PIV smart identity card within the federal enterprise. What began as an observing role quickly turned into a leadership position for the Smart Card Alliance to help shape the future policy for physical access control system migration in the federal government. The Physical Access Council rose to the challenge and began developing a document that began to take on a purpose all its own. Soon the document took on a life outside of the original Migration Task Force effort and became an industry-wide view with input from other industry groups, NIST, and other federal agencies. This week the Physical Access Control System Migration Options for Using FIPS 201-1 Compliant Credentials white paper was released. The document has been endorsed by the Smart Card Alliance, Security Industry Association (SIA), International Biometrics Industry Association (IBIA) and the Open Security Exchange (OSE) - the first collaboration of this magnitude for issuing security industry guidance.
Member Profile
This month, Smart Card Talk spoke with Michael Miley, assistant vice president and acting chief technology officer for SAIC's Mission Integration Business Unit. Miley is responsible for R&D initiatives as well as strategic oversight of biometric, smart card, and identity management programs. He established and helps maintain SAIC's Biometric Research Center. He has extensively researched next-generation, contactless smart-card applications using public-key cryptography and biometrics for both physical and cyber access systems In 2000, Miley worked for a DoD smart card program office, where he managed an innovative physical access control pilot using a common access card. In 2002, he provided subject-matter expertise in support of an ePassport program and co-authored several studies on chip security. In 2004, he was named SAIC's program manager for a large-scale facial-recognition system. Miley earned his master's degree in information systems and technology from George Washington University and his B.A. in international economics from Muhlenberg College.
"The convergence of payments and mobile communications is not just logical--it is inevitable." In March 2007, John Philip Coghlan, then CEO of Visa USA, made this announcement at the CTIA Wireless Conference. Yet only a few years ago, people were still saying, "Some day, we will pay using mobile phones." The Smart Card Alliance and related industry groups representing financial institutions, merchants, and mobile operators have talked and written about "some day" for almost a decade. But now, virtually every industry group involved in the transaction chain is investigating the use of mobile payments. And mobile payment will soon be a standard transaction method for payment in many North American merchant locations. What has happened to move mobile payments from "some day" to "inevitable?"
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Executive Director's Letter
