Alliance: First responders need credentials
14 October, 2008
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The Smart Card Alliance has released a white paper detailing best practices for issuing first responder credentials.
“Emergency Response Official Credentials: An Approach to Attain Trust in Credentials across Multiple Jurisdictions for Disaster Response and Recovery” is designed to identify best practices and defines use cases for credentials based on the FIPS 201 standard, and outlines how these credentials can meet identity goals of trust, privacy, interoperability, and usability.
The paper also describes demonstrations and pilots of the First Responder Authentication Credential (FRAC) that have involved emergency response officials in the National Capital Region, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Texas, Illinois, Florida and Colorado.
“Secure and trusted identification credentials achieve two goals,” the paper states. “First, they enable emergency response officials to perform day-to-day activities efficiently, by providing access to facilities, locations, and information. Second, they provide identity authentication with a high assurance level during emergency response and recovery activities.”
This paper answers the following questions:
• What are the primary requirements for emergency response officials credentials and how does FIPS 201 help to meet these requirements?
• How can FIPS 201-based emergency response officials credentials be used for both emergency response and recovery and for daily access to physical facilities and online resources?
• What are the benefits of using FIPS 201 smart card-based identity credentials?
• What credentialing programs have been demonstrated or piloted by DHS and the states?
The full report can be downloaded here.
