Defense Mulls Biometrics For Updated Common Access Card
The U.S. Department of Defense is considering how best to add biometrics to the next generation of the Common Access Card it has issued to more than 4 million agency employees and contractors. Mike Butler, chief of smart card programs at the Pentagon's Defense Manpower Data Center East, tells Card Technology "the holy grail" for the new CAC would be to store biometric identifiers on the card, but some questions remain as to the technology's maturity. "Biometrics might not be the wild west, as it might have been last year, but it's certainly a place where you need to be packing a gun," Butler says. Defense will most likely wait for biometrics standards to emerge from the National Institute of Science and Technology before deciding on a specific biometric technology and approach, Butler says. Biometrics could be used to protect data stored on the cards themselves and as part of a physical access system controlling doors and gates at secure facilities. The next generation CAC, which Defense hopes to begin issuing in January 2005, will carry a chip with 64K of electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM) and a new framework to manage applications loaded onto the card, Butler says. A contactless chip may also be added to the card, but Butler says Defense must first make a business case to justify the extra cost. The agency plans to purchase cards this summer from France-based vendors Axalto and Gemplus, Butler says. The current Common Access Card has been rolled out to 85% of the agency personnel and contractors due to receive it. Butler says the majority of those people who have not yet received their cards are stationed in areas far from an issuance machine.
(2004-04-16)
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