Smart Card Alliance publishes white paper on smart cards and NSTIC

The Smart Card Alliance has developed a new white paper focused on smart card technology and strong credentials within the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC).

According to the Alliance, as a group, it is promoting the adoption of the NSTIC framework, saying that it strongly agrees with the use of federal, state and local government initiatives to accelerate the development of an identity ecosystem. At the same time, says the Alliance, existing procedures, standards and technology should be leveraged.

The Smart Card Alliance is a not-for-profit, multi-industry associated working to stimulate the understanding, adoption, use and widespread application of smart card technology. The Alliance has over 200 members worldwide across a number of sectors and industry verticals.

The NSTIC is a White House initiative to improve on the credentials used to access the internet and to authenticate identities online. Specifically, the initiative proposes a marketplace that allows people to choose among multiple identity providers, both private and public, who can issue trusted credentials.

The newly-published whitepaper reviews the NSTIC initiatives, provides an overview of levels of assurance and discusses how smart card technology can provide the advanced credentialing capabilities needed to enable high assurance in the ecosystem.

“While the details of the NSTIC identity ecosystem are still being defined, smart card technology provides a secure flexible solution and is the best choice for higher assurance levels,” says the Alliance.

Reported previously, the Smart Card Alliance Identity Council announced early this year that 2013 would be centered around a focus on providing guidance and leading practices for mobile identity credentialing and the NSTIC.

“As government and enterprises look at new approaches to identity–such as with the secure online identities and mobile credentialing–the Identity Council plays the important role of providing guidance on how to choose the applicable technology to ensure identities are trusted, private and secure,” Randy Vanderhoof, executive director of the Smart Card Alliance said.

 

Article Topics

biometric cards  |  credentials  |  government  |  NSTIC  |  white paper