Secure Credentials Issued by the Government Publishing Office

PURPOSE:

• To examine the impact of the Government Publishing Office’s (GPO) role in building secure identity documents for federal government agencies, its exemption from Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) as a legislative entity, and whether competitive acquisition is necessary to ensure that federal identity documents safeguard national security.
• To give industry experts an opportunity to provide an overview of radio frequency identification (RFID) technology.

BACKGROUND:

• Federal secure credentials include a variety of documents, including personal identification cards with security features to prevent counterfeiting or other illicit tampering. Such credentials may also have a memory chip with RFID that can store and transmit information to an external card reader.
• GPO is the federal government’s primary centralized resource for gathering, cataloging, producing, providing, authenticating, and preserving published U.S. government information in all its forms.
• Recently, GPO started producing RFID-secured identity documents. Procurement of these documents is governed by the FAR when contracted by executive branch agencies from private suppliers. The purpose of the FAR is to provide uniform policies and procedures for government contracting.