SCA concludes conference, names 2012 board

The 10th Annual Smart Card Alliance Government Conference took place in November 2011 in Washington, D.C. The event brought together an array of government employees, policymakers, analysts and technologists to discuss government smart card programs.

In discussing the role of the conference, Smart Card Alliance Executive Director Randy Vanderhoof said, "Fully trusted identities – whether government identities, online identities, health care identities or personal identities – are the end goal as the U.S. government creates initiatives to keep access to online electronic data authenticated and secure. Our government conference is the only event offering a comprehensive update from the experts that lead these initiatives."

NSTIC and smart cards

Conference topics included federal and private personal identity verification (PIV) credentials, mobile device trusted identities, the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC), health care identity and access management, and state and local identity initiatives.

Topics covered in the discussion included:

• Dr. Jim James from the American Medical Association updated the conference on the research going into a proposed Health Security Card program – a way for health care patients to carry their medical records on a smart card. The program would potentially allow properly credentialed Federal Emergency Management Agency first responders to read patient smart card records on a FEMA device during a disaster. This would be done if other records are destroyed or inaccessible.

• Patrick Hearn of Oberthur Technologies predicted bi-partisan legislation promoting the Medicare Common Access Card could save the government up to $30 billion a year in waste and fraud while also better protecting patient identifications.

• Paul Grant, the U.S. Department of Defense Chief Information Officer's Special Assistant for Federated Identity Management, underlined the importance of smart cards to the NSTIC when he said PIV-based technology is being used as a part of White House security.

• The National Association of State CIO's Chad Grant said members of his group are very interested in PIV credentials. He pledged his group will play a role in building a national framework of interoperable, federated identities.

• David Belchick, Vice President at Citibank N.A., indicated Citi Global Transaction Services began issuing personal identity verification cards to Department of Defense contractors in November 2011.

The conference also heard a report on the status of coming revisions to the federal standard for PIV. The first draft elicited more than 1,000 comments. The National Institute for Standards and Technology is currently working on a second draft. The goal of the new standard is to improve efficiency and security and introduce standards for new technologies such as biometric match-on-cards and PIV credentialing on mobile devices.

Audio archives of these and other presentations are available for purchase at www.event.com/d/ldqgmg .

SCA 2012 board

SCA members also elected a new board and executive committee during the conference. Vanderhoof said the new governing bodies include members from across the spectrum of the smart card industry.

The new executive committee comprises Chairman Willy Dommen, Senior Manager Accenture; Vice Chair Garfield Smith, Vice President of Marketing in the Americas for Oberthur Technologies; Treasurer Paul Legacki, Group Manager at Infineon Technologies AG; Assistant Treasurer Brian Russell, Vice President of Payment Solutions at Giescke & Devrient GmbH; Secretary Greg Garback, Executive Officer of the Department of Finance at the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority; Assistant Secretary Wendy Humphrey, Senior Vice President for Business Development at Bank of America N.A.; and Technology Vice Chair Neville Pattinson, Vice President of Standards and Government Affairs for Gemalto N.A.

New and returning SCA board members are Greg Boardman of Ingenico GmbH; Kirk Brafford, Deloitte Development LLC; Frazier Evans, Booz Allen Hamilton Inc.; Bob Gilson, U.S. Department of Defense/Defense Manpower Data Center; Dale Grogan, LifeMed ID Inc.; Simon Hurry, Visa, Inc.; John Mears, Lockheed Martin Corp.; Oliver Manahan, MasterCard Worldwide; Dominic Morea, First Data Corp.; Dori Skelding, JPMorgan Chase & Co.; and Keith Ward, Northrop Grumman Corp.

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