Alliance Activities : Publications : Government ID

Publications – Government ID

This brief was developed by the Smart Card Alliance Access Control Council to provide an easy-to-use comparison of Personal Identity Verification (PIV), PIV-Interoperable (PIV-I) and Commercial Identity Verification (CIV) credentials.

The Smart Card Alliance Identity Council developed this position paper to provide the Alliance interpretation and position on the OMB-defined levels of assurance.

This brief was developed by the Smart Card Alliance Healthcare Council to describe the benefits of smart cards for healthcare applications and to provide a comparison with magnetic stripe cards.

This white paper was developed by the Smart Card Alliance Physical Access Council to provide guidance on how enterprises can take advantage of FIPS 201 and the PIV credential specifications to implement a standards-based commercial identity credentialing program. The white paper defines the Commercial Identity Verification (CIV) credential as a credential that uses the same technology and data model as the PIV-I credential.

Version 1.1 of the Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange’s (WEDI) Health Identification Card Implementation Guide includes Integrated Circuit Cards (ICC), commonly known as smart cards, as an appropriate card type. For organizations considering upgrading their member identity cards to smart cards, this document serves as a supplement to the WEDI Health Identification Card Implementation Guide. It provides WEDI-compliant smart card designs and includes a discussion of the features and benefits of smart ID cards for healthcare providers and payers.

Government policy makers are looking carefully at the best ways to improve the efficiency of information systems in the healthcare industry. Much emphasis has been placed on the need for electronic health records for every American, and at ways to exchange those records at the regional, state and national levels. This brief was developed by the Smart Card Alliance Healthcare and Identity Councils to introduce the current problems with healthcare identity management, security and privacy, and propose leveraging existing federal standards and technologies already used in other government identity programs.

The new electronic passports (ePassports) include digital and physical security technologies that are integrated together to provide significantly higher levels of security. ePassports use advanced technologies that secure identities and new processes throughout the entire chain of trust – from manufacturing to use of the ePassport. This frequently asked questions (FAQ) document was developed by the Smart Card Alliance Identity Council to answer questions about how the ePassport works and what technology is used to protect an ePassport holder’s personal information.

The Smart Card Alliance Identity Council and Physical Access Council developed the summary of the Federal Identity, Credential, and Access Management (FICAM) Roadmap and Implementation Guidance to highlight key concepts and to make it more accessible to its target audiences. In developing and publishing the summary, the Smart Card Alliance hopes to expand the audience reading the document and promote its concepts broadly through the identity, credential and access management industry. The summary includes the FICAM segment architecture, as-is and target use cases, and roadmap and initiatives for Federal implementation of the FICAM architecture.

This Physical Access Council white paper provides a roadmap to the key specifications that agencies need to consider in implementing FIPS 201-compliant physical access control systems and provides an overview of the key open questions where work is still being done on standards definition and implementation guidance.

The Smart Card Alliance Physical Access Council developed this white paper to discuss factors that impact PIV II card transaction performance in PACS applications and provide recommendations on data encoding, user training and installation that can improve the user experience and reduce PIV II card PACS transaction time.

“Meaningful use” has the top priority of today’s healthcare industry. In 2010, the government, healthcare organizations, consumers and technology providers came together to move toward interoperable electronic health records that can transform the healthcare industry. This white paper outlines the ways in which smart card-based systems can better position healthcare organizations and providers for meaningful use of electronic health records, while addressing many of the security and privacy challenges that come with electronic health records and health data exchange.

Policy makers are looking carefully at the best ways to improve our healthcare system with much emphasis being placed on the need for electronic health records for every American. This effort also includes creating an infrastructure to allow the exchange of these records at the regional, state and national levels. This paper introduces the current challenges and explains why identity management in healthcare is an essential and foundational element that must be made a priority by policy makers in order to achieve the goals of widespread use of electronic health records to support the secure and seamless exchange of healthcare information. The paper also recommends best practices for introducing a healthcare identity management infrastructure–one that provides the needed security and privacy controls that should be specified by policy makers.

The Smart Card Alliance developed this position paper to describe the issues with unique identifiers and discuss how smart cards can be used as authenticators when using unique identifiers.

This position paper describes key elements in the design of an identity management system that affect privacy and security and the benefits that smart cards bring to identity management systems.

This FAQ answers questions about privacy, security and smart card benefits for identity management systems.

The Identity Council webinar series recordings provide the groundwork for understanding how to establish and use a mobile identity credential through real-world use cases that are relevant to multiple industry sectors.

This brief was developed by the Smart Card Alliance Identity Council to present the vision of the secure use of mobile devices for identity applications and to describe different use cases for current and NFC-enabled mobile devices.

This white paper was developed by the Secure Technology Alliance Mobile Council to provide an overview of mobile ID authentication, to highlight use cases that rely on secure user credentials stored on a mobile device, and to provide some perspectives on how emerging technologies and standards are addressing the growing need for mobile ID authentication. Use cases highlighted include access control, payments, government-to-consumer services, and corporate applications.

This Secure Technology Alliance Identity Council webinar series discusses mobile driver’s licenses (mDLs) and the impact they will have on identity verification as state issuing agencies and relying parties adopt the technology.

This white paper was developed by the Smart Card Alliance Physical Access Council and Identity Council to describe the benefits of FIPS 201, PIV standards and PIV-I framework for state and local governments to enable interoperability and trust across different government issuers for a wide variety of identity credentialing programs. The white paper discusses policy, process and technology considerations related to the implementation of state and local government identity credentialing initiatives. The white paper summarizes important aspects of the current state of policy, process and technology and identifies opportunities to support additional work to further improve each through the use of the PIV-I framework and the PIV standard.

This guidance document was developed by the Smart Card Alliance Access Control Council and Identity Council to help users diagnose the cause of any PIV card/reader issues with physical access control systems and provide troubleshooting guidance to quickly identify corrective actions.

This white paper was developed by the Smart Card Alliance Identity Council to document the benefits of using PIV-interoperable credentials for enterprises and to provide implementation case studies of enterprises that are issuing or planning to issue PIV-I credentials.

State policy makers are looking carefully at the use of RFID technology in identity cards and the implications that holds for protecting privacy and personal information in identity applications and systems. This brief was developed by the Smart Card Alliance Identity Council to examine best practices for privacy-secure identity systems from the point of view of card technologies.

This Smart Card Alliance white paper compares RFID technology and RF-enabled smart cards and describes key requirements in RF-enabled applications.

This white paper was developed by the Smart Card Alliance Physical Access Council to describe the benefits of combining smart cards and biometrics to enable strong verification and authentication of an individual’s identity. The white paper provides an overview of biometrics technology, discusses how it’s used for identification and verification, and describes the benefits of using smart cards and biometrics to enable strong verification and authentication of the cardholder’s identity. The white paper includes eight case study examples of identity verification systems that combine smart cards and biometrics, including the Singapore Immigration Automated Clearance System, the Canadian Airport Restricted Area Identification Card, Amsterdam Schiphol Airport workforce ID card, the University of Arizona Keyless Access Security System, the FIPS 201 Personal Identity Verification (PIV) card, the U.S. Department of Defense Common Access Card (CAC), the U.S. Transportation Worker Identification Credential (TWIC), and the electronic passport.

This white paper was developed by the Smart Card Alliance Healthcare Council to provide an overview of smart card and biometric technologies, discuss the key considerations for selecting biometric and smart card technology for identity verification, and describe the benefits of combining smart cards and biometrics for identity applications.

The Smart Card Alliance Access Control Council developed this position paper to highlight the impact of the OMB Circular A-130 Managing Information as a Strategic Resource 2016 update on the access control industry and on government agencies procuring and implementing access control systems.

The Smart Card Alliance Identity Council developed this white paper to describe the benefits of combining smart card technology and strong credentials within the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC).

This frequently asked questions document was developed to answer questions about how smart cards work and how the technology is used to manage patient identity and protect a healthcare consumer’s personal information.

This white paper was developed by the Smart Card Alliance Access Control Council to discuss the benefits of using smart card technology for strong authentication for logical access.

The Smart Card Alliance Identity Council, Mobile and NFC Council and Access Control Council developed this white paper to provide guidance to U.S. Government policy makers and technologists on the key technical, business and policy considerations for supporting the Personal Identity Verification (PIV) application and credentials on mobile devices using the UICC.

The Secure Technology Alliance Access Control Council developed this white paper to recommend an approach for implementing temporary identity credentials for physical PACS in federal agencies

The Secure Technology Alliance Access Control Council to help users diagnose the cause of TWIC card/reader issues with physical access control systems and provide troubleshooting guidance to quickly identify corrective actions.

The Smart Card Alliance Identity Council and Physical Access Council developed this white paper to provide an overview of FIPS 201 for corporate enterprise executives and to describe the benefits of using FIPS 201 as the foundation for enterprise identity management programs.

The Secure Technology Alliance Access Control Council and Identity Council developed this white paper to discuss how mobile devices can be used for physical access control.  The white paper includes an overview of technology, trust frameworks, assurance levels and use cases.