HID Global Unveils Federal Identity Compliance Initiative For Physical Access Control

  • Apr 06, 2011

HID Global recently announced it will be demonstrating the first in a planned family of simple-to-deploy, cost-effective, turnkey FIPS 201 compliance solutions at ISC West 2011. 

The company’s Federal Identity Compliance Initiative will make it easier for federal agencies to upgrade anexisting physical access control system (PACS) to support recently mandated government identity-verification standards.

HID Global’s federal compliance initiative combines the company’s strengths in access control solutions and technology migration, the enhanced cryptographic security of its next-generation reader platform, and the extensive identity-assurance portfolio it acquired from ActivIdentity, a recently purchased HID Global company. 

Customers will be able to deploy HID Global readers that are seamlessly integrated with its ActivIdentity ActivEntry upgrade modules, and achieve full FIPS 201 compliance without having to replace their current physical access control head-end server, panel or door control hardware.


According to a February 2011 memorandum issued by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), existing physical and logical access control systems must be upgraded to use Personal Identification Verification (PIV) credentials in accordance with National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) guidelines, before federal agencies may use development and technology refresh funds to complete other activities.

HID Global’s Federal Identity Compliance Initiative will speed and simplify compliance, offer a migration path from legacy to PIV credentials, and provide a modular hardware approach that makes it easier for agencies to respond to regulatory changes, modify security levels in selected areas as required, and take advantage of ongoing advances in access-control technology.     

“HID is uniquely positioned to serve this critical government market need,” said Brad Jarvis, vice president of strategic product initiatives with HID Global.  “Our Federal Identity Compliance Initiative gives agencies the confidence that they can achieve compliance quickly, effectively and with all necessary audit support, on an incremental, pay-as-you-go basis that preserves investments in their existing infrastructure.  We will be extending our next-generation reader platform with a variety of modular hardware options that enable agencies to very flexibly address compliance requirements across all PIV access-area permission levels.”

HID Global’s next-generation readers use EAL5+ Secure Element (SE) hardware for tamper-proof protection of keys and cryptographic operations, and the industry-standard Open Supervised Device Protocol (OSDP) to establish a seamless and secure, bidirectional communications link with the company’s ActivEntry hardware modules.  

This creates a fully tested and validated, turnkey solution for upgrading an existing physical access control infrastructure so that it can authenticate PIV credentials across the full range of assurance levels as defined by the federal government’s Special Publication 800-116 (SP800-116).  The most recent ActivEntry 2.4 offering also adds a new service application programming interface (API) that integrates PACS enrollment capability directly into the validation service.

HID Global plans to expand its offering to address all SP800-116 access permission levels, including Controlled, Limited and Exclusion areas.  To showcase the capabilities HID Global will offer during the first two deployment phases of its Federal Identity Compliance Initiative, the company will be featuring its coming, next-generation access control platform, the iCLASS SE reader, in the following demonstrations at ISC West 2011:

  • Controlled access compliance:    This solution will show how HID Global’s next-generation access control platform supports Card Authentication Key (CAK) Certificate access and delivers access permissions to Controlled areas per SP800-116 requirements.
  • Contact and biometric compliance:  This solution will enable PIV authorization certificate access, which delivers access permissions to Controlled, Limited and Exclusion areas per SP800-116 requirements.

HID Global will be offering its Federal Identity Compliance Initiative product family through its proven network of physical access control channel partners.  The initiative is backed by the company’s Genuine HID value proposition, which stresses the highest levels of global product quality and delivery performance.  HID Global also plans to extend the program beyond FIPS 201 to support Public Key Infrastructure (PKI)-at-the-door compliance and also PIV-I and PIV-C (PIV-compatible) requirements for cards issued by non-federal entities.

 

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