Agencies told to keep up with ID management

Leaders of federal agencies should consider projects to keep pace with governmentwide identity management initiatives as they develop their fiscal 2011 budget submissions, a senior official said today.

Judith Spencer, agency expert for identity management, Office of Governmentwide Policy at the General Services Administration, is encouraging agency executives to stay current on the activities of the Federal CIO Council’s Identity, Credential and Access Management Subcommittee.

The subcommittee’s mission is to leverage expertise in identity solutions across government, to reduce the burden on individual agencies and to improve alignments between agencies and with entities outside the federal government, Spencer said in an online Virtual FOSE presentation. The event was sponsored by 1105 Media, the parent company of Federal Computer Week.

The goal is to implement the new Federal Identity Credential for logical access to computers and for physical access to systems, she said.

The subcommittee also is working to define information technology solutions that will enable outside vendors, contractors and others to interoperate with the credential. One of the chief aims is to tighten security for global supply chains to federal agencies.

For improving government interaction with people, the goal is to “leverage open solutions [to] make it easier for the American public to access government information, avoid issuance of application-specific credentials and leverage Web 2.0 technologies,” Spencer said.

At least six federal advisory groups are working on technologies and policies related to identity management. Spencer encouraged agency executives to get in touch with one or more of the groups to stay up to date with the latest initiatives that include:

• The Federal PKI Policy Authority administers the policies of Federal Public Key Infrastructure.
• The Roadmap Development Team reviews content of the federal identity management road map.
• The Architecture Working Group develops the new technical architecture for federal identity management.
• The Citizen Outreach Focus Group makes recommendation concerning government-to-citizen interaction.
• The Federation Interoperability Working Group develops interorganizational trust.
• The Logical Access Working Group is developing guidance on logical access using personal identity verification cards.