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U.S. State Department Plans Smart Card Rollout
WASHINGTON,DC October 30, 2001 - The U.S. State Department plans to issue smart cards next spring to some 15,000 employees who use the agency’s headquarters building in Washington, D.C. Cardholders will have to insert the chip card into a reader and enter a personal identification number to gain entry, says Lolie Kull, manager of the access control portion of the project for the department’s Office of Domestic Operations. The cards also will carry digital certificates that will allow cardholders to encrypt and digitally sign documents transmitted electronically. Ultimately, approximately 35,000 State Department workers and outside contractors will use such smart cards at some 30 buildings, Kull says. She says the State Department had planned to issue smart cards, as other federal agencies are doing, before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. But the attacks, she says, have “provided us with more of a sense of urgency to make sure anyone who comes into our building is authorized to be there, and whoever is holding the card is who they are supposed to be.” (10-30) CardTechnology
