Federal Government Begins Rollout Of Smart Cards To Employees

The federal government began the long task of rolling out identification cards to millions of federal employees and contractors last week. The final deadline for everyone in government to have a smart card isn't until Oct. 27, 2008, but two years is a long time and the country's a big place where lots can go wrong.

Perhaps the biggest potential stumbling block is logistics. The government isn't known for being nimble, and the size of the smart-card project is huge. The General Services Administration alone will issue at least 400,000 cards to 38 agencies in about 200 enrollment locations nationwide starting next year. Chips in the cards will contain personal data such as fingerprint images, access certificates, and identification numbers.

Another challenge is whether disparate identification systems put in place across agencies by multiple vendors will interoperate. President Bush's Homeland Security Presidential Directive 12 requires that these systems work government-wide, but the sheer number of different vendors could create problems just as it does in the private sector, where products claiming to be standards-based aren't fully interoperable.

Just how well, or poorly, the rollout goes should prove instructional for future, possibly even bigger, smart-card initiatives such as a national identification system or intelligent passports, as well as for businesses and groups of companies such as banks and creditors involved in smart-card initiatives.