Government Task Force

The Government Task Force was established in 2006, to determine GlobalPlatform's role in addressing the long-term needs of governments engaged in large-scale smart card deployments for e-ID. In light of the increasing number of large scale government ID smart card programs, more and more governments are seeking information about how to specify open and interoperable solutions in their tenders. An increasing number are turning to consultants and systems integrators for education, to learn about best practices and to minimize deployment risk - functionally and financially.

The Government Task Force aims to promote the value of GlobalPlatform Specifications to this sector, educating and informing government issuers, consultants and integrators about the benefits that an open and interoperable smart card infrastructure can bring to their program. Additionally, the task force aims to provide feedback to the GlobalPlatform technical committees regarding the emerging needs of governments in smart card based ID deployments. This feedback is based on members' own experience and engagement within the sector and ongoing collaboration between the Government Task Force and other standardization and government focused bodies.

Achievements to date:

• Publication of a white paper titled: 'The GlobalPlatform Value Proposition for Identity Management' which is targeted at the program/project manager, implementer or consultant.
• The provision of strategic counsel to the Systems Committee relating to the development of an application specific configuration of the GlobalPlatform Messaging Specification, titled 'PIV (Personal Identification Verification) Configuration for Messaging, v1.0'. This configuration is dedicated to the batch personalization of PIV cards. While it addresses FIPS (Federal Information Processing Standards) 201 compliant card deployments, it can also be used to support other ID card programs or FIPS 201 extensions.

2008 Activities and Priorities:

• To continue the promotion of GlobalPlatform technology for large scale ID initiatives through a series of white papers and technical workshops.
• To continue collaboration with standards organizations in Europe, Asia and the Americas and to open dialogue with new associations including the European Committee for Standardization (CEN), the Brussels Interoperability Group (BIG), the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).
• To ensure that existing GlobalPlatform technology meets the needs of issuers and to close any gaps between established specifications and emerging application requirements from the government sector.
• To provide feedback to the GlobalPlatform technical committees to ensure alignment of activity with the needs of governments on topics such as biometric 'match on-card', secure channel protocols and secure messaging exchange among systems such as a Card Management System and an Identity Management System.
• To develop a white paper to discuss current standardization efforts for biometrics and GlobalPlatform’s value proposition for biometric match-on-card applications.