Defense begins issuing new identification cards

The Pentagon distributed a handful of new employee access cards last week to meet a deadline in a White House mandate aimed at establishing a uniform governmentwide identification system. But officials acknowledged that it will be another seven years before the new system is fully implemented at the Defense Department.

While the new cards are similar to the common access cards currently in use throughout the department, they have been upgraded to comply with the standards established under Homeland Security Presidential Directive 12. These include the electronic storage of two digital fingerprints, a digital photo inside a computer chip on the card and cryptographic keys that verify the cardholder's identity.

Defense employees and members of the military will receive new cards as their current ones expire and the department upgrades its card issuance infrastructure. Old cards will remain valid during the transition period, officials said.

David S.C. Chu, undersecretary for personnel and readiness at the Defense Department, said the new cards will increase efficiency, reduce the possibility of identity fraud and protect the privacy of cardholders. They will be used to access department facilities and computer systems.

"An important element of this is that it builds trust across agencies because there is one credential," Chu said. "Each agency, each installation can decide who has access to that place … but we all have a common way of identifying who is standing in front of you."

The military will install software and hardware upgrades at its 1,400 card issuance stations worldwide during the next year. This will be followed by the distribution of new cards to more than 3 million military personnel, reserve and National Guard members, civilian Defense employees and eligible contractors. Defense officials estimated that process could take another three years.

Under the new system, card issuers will be able to instantly verify that the cardholder has passed the necessary background checks, said Mary Dixon, director of the Defense Manpower Data Center's access card office.

Between 10 and 20 cards were handed out on Friday to meet the minimum requirements of the HSPD 12 mandate, Dixon said. The directive asked agencies to each issue at least one of the high-tech ID cards by Oct. 27.

One challenge is making sure the new infrastructure for reading the cards will be able to accept the old cards during the transition period, Dixon said.

About 85 percent of the department already is in compliance with HSPD 12 standards for using the cards to log on to computers and the department's Web sites, Dixon said. Once this step is successfully completed, employees will not have to remember as many user IDs and passwords, Dixon said.

Setting up the physical security side of the infrastructure, which involves gate and door access systems, remains the department's biggest challenge, Dixon said. The physical access industry must get up to speed on the HSPD 12 standards before the department can begin implementing the infrastructure necessary for using the high tech aspects of the card, she said.

Dixon estimated that once the four-year process of issuing all the cards is complete, it could take another three years to establish the physical infrastructure for using them.