Feds Miss ID Card Deadline

The Office of Management and Budget says the federal government has fallen short of meeting last month’s deadline to distribute secure personal ID cards to employees and contractors.

In an article on the NextGov website, Jill R. Aitoro says OMB found that only about 29 percent of federal employees and contractors had been issued the high-tech ID card, which contains the cardholder’s biometric information. OMB had set an Oct. 27 deadline for agencies to issue the cards.

Karen Evans, administrator of e-government and information technology at OMB, told Aitoro the number of ID cards agencies had distributed was not “an acceptable level of performance. There are agencies that should be commended, because they did what they said they’d do, [and] there are other agencies that were challenged. We’re going back and saying, ‘You missed your target. It will be reflected on the score card appropriately.’ The next step isn’t to say tough luck, [but] to make sure they have what they need to meet this goal.”

Aitoro says OMB found that 12 of the 16 agencies it tracks as part of the President’s Management Agenda met or nearly met their targets for card issuance that were set in previously agreed-upon implementation plans.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology plans to issue a technical guidance for agencies to follow when issuing the ID cards, Aitoro says.

To read the full article, click here: http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20081031_5823.php