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| Subject: UK Government Seeks Standard For Public Sector Smart CardsThe consultation period ends on October 30, | |
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Author: The Department for Transport is evaluating |
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Date Posted: Friday, September 05, 02:35:37am UK Government Seeks Standard For Public Sector Smart Cards The UK government is asking for comments on its plans to establish a common standard for public sector smart card schemes. The consultation period ends on October 30, 2003. "The whole situation for local government smart cards in general has been characterized by a severe lack of standards," says John Elliott of UK-based Consult Hyperion. "A number of the local authorities in England and Scotland have their own smart card schemes, and the problem is that each of them is doing something different. They were having to make it up as they go along. ITSO (Integrated Transport Smart card Organisation) for transport is the only current application-level standard in the UK. A body called the LASSEO (Local Authority Smart cards Standards e-Organisation) has recently been set up to try to address the lack of standards, but nothing has emerged to date from its deliberations." These local authority smart cards are used for functions such as visiting libraries and swimming pools, paying for bus tickets, and claiming free school meals. Adding to the confusion, individual national government departments are developing smart card schemes. The Department for Education and Skills, for instance, has agreed on a seven-year program with IT company Capita to develop the Connexions smart card scheme. Connexions cards will reward teenagers for staying in school beyond the compulsory school-leaving age of 16. The Department for Transport is evaluating the use of smart cards for driver's licenses and for storing vehicle registration documents, while the Home Office sees smart cards as a possible technology for a national identity card scheme. As part of the consultation process, the government has published a document, Smart Cards: Enabling e-Government, setting out its vision of the future of public sector smart cards in the UK and analysing barriers to their take-up. The document has been written by staff at the Office of the e-Envoy, the Whitehall department tasked with making all government services available electronically by 2005. The Office of the e-Envoy sees smart cards as playing an important role in facilitating e-government, both at the local and national level. It says that in the future, individuals will use smart card readers built into digital TV set-top boxes or installed in PCs to access e-government services. But first a number of obstacles will need to be overcome, the government says: The lack of an industry-wide set of standards, as a result of which the various UK public sector smart card schemes are not interoperable; The absence of a proven business case for multiapplication smart card schemes; The need to prove that the person presenting a smart card really is the cardholder. The government's solution to the interoperability problem is to standardize technology. "Once there is a standard, the councils can get the cost of their smart card schemes down," says Elliott. "For example, they could use the same back-office software and they could also use the same cards, but load them with their local applications." The report recommends that public sector smart card schemes adopt the e-government interoperability framework (e-Gif), a set of rules designed to enable UK e-government IT systems to interoperate. "The e-Gif was developed for e-government in general," says Elliott. The Office of the e-Envoy says it will work with smart card scheme operators and technology vendors to develop business cases and "best practice" policies for multiapplication smart cards. To provide proof of identity on the Internet, it recommends that public sector smart cards incorporate a digital signature capability. "Smart card technology is perfect for e-government," says Elliott. "Putting public key cryptography onto the chip means that card-holders can identify themselves online. And if the chip has a biometric capability, then they can also prove their physical identity." To download the consultative document, see www.e-envoy.gov.uk Reported by Robin Arnfield in London. ( 2003-09-02 ) [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ] |