Smart Card Alliance: Cybersecurity and healthcare identity to be prioritized in upcoming year

The Smart Card Alliance Identity Council will turn its attention to cybersecurity and healthcare identity in the upcoming year, the Council said today, while continuing its work to educate and make identity credentialing recommendations for corporate enterprise, healthcare, state and local governments, and more. The Identity Council also announced new officers and steering committee, and plans to attend the Smart Card Alliance 8th Annual Smart Cards in Government Conference in Washington, DC.

"With the Obama administration making cybersecurity a priority, and President Obama naming a cybersecurity czar any day, this is clearly an issue to which we will be paying close attention," said new Identity Council chair Neville Pattinson, vice president of government affairs and standards at Gemalto. "As the administration builds a comprehensive national security strategy, we hope to help by educating on the use of technology to securely authenticate individuals on the Internet."

This past year, the Identity Council collaborated with the Smart Card Alliance Healthcare Council on a number of projects, including a National Press Club briefing in Washington, DC, last May. The purpose of the briefing was to raise awareness of the importance of privacy, access and identity in the Obama administration's effort to modernize the nation's healthcare information infrastructure. The two Councils also collaborated on the brief, "Effective Healthcare Identity Management: A Necessary First Step for Improving U.S. Healthcare Information Systems - A Smart Card Alliance Brief for Government Policy Makers and Other Stakeholders."

"With healthcare IT getting nearly a $19 billion boost from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, these efforts by our Identity Council and Healthcare Council are evidence of our members' willingness to jump in and address the most timely issues," said Randy Vanderhoof, executive director of the Smart Card Alliance. "The Identity Council also did a lot of important work addressing credentialing beyond the federal government, to state and local governments, emergency response officials, and the corporate enterprise. It shows the Council's breadth in working on issues surrounding identity, security and privacy in many sectors."

Other resources published by the Identity Council this year include: "ePassport Frequently Asked Questions"; "Privacy, Identity, and the Use of RFID and RF-Enabled Smart Card Technology - A Smart Card Alliance Brief for State and Local Governments"; "Emergency Response Official Credentials: An Approach to Attain Trust in Credentials across Multiple Jurisdictions for Disaster Response and Recovery"; and "Using FIPS 201 and the PIV Card for the Corporate Enterprise." All of these resources can be found on the Identity Council section of the Smart Card Alliance Web site.