Is your wallet busting at the seams from all your credit cards, access cards, preferred customer cards, calling cards and ID cards? Is your brain cracking under the pressure of remembering your ATM code, your computer password, your calling card number and your luggage combination?
Then you may be jealous of 450 employees at the General Services Administration, who this month will be issued a Visa smart card that will serve as a purchase card, travel card, building access card, computer password, calling card, electronic boarding pass, and even a digital signature signer to secure online communications.
"Cardholders are growing weary of the number of cards they're carrying in their wallets," said Diana Knox, senior vice president of smart card applications for Visa. "Rather than issue stand-alone cards for each application, GSA decided it would be better to place these services on a card that's already going to be carried in employee's wallet."
GSA and Visa say this pilot is one of the most advanced real-life uses of smart card technology in the United States. While smart cards are popular in parts of Europe, concerns about privacy, security, interoperability and price have stymied smart card growth in the United States.
Visa, MasterCard and Microsoft are among the companies attempting to establish standards for smart card applications in the U.S. market.
One side of the Visa smart card GSA employees will carry looks like a normal charge card. The other side has a picture of the employee and serves as a building access pass. The card also has a radio frequency antenna built into it for access to areas controlled by a proximity readers. Employees will be able to wave the card in front of the readers to get into those areas.
For ultra-secure areas, the card carries biometric data. To get into such areas, an employee would insert the card into a special reader and place his finger on a piece of glass. A biometric security device would match the employee's fingerprint to the information on the card and allow him or her to enter.
Biometric readers will also be used for access to desktop computers. Employees will essentially log on to their computers using their fingerprints.
In addition to travel and purchase functions, the card will also act as a calling card. Employees traveling on American Airlines will be able to use the cards as electronic boarding passes to avoid lines at airport check-in counters.
Digital signature information on the cards will be passed into employees' computers through a special keyboard slot. The digital signature information will be used to encrypt email messages and secure online transactions.
Bill Holcombe, director of card technology in GSA's Office of Governmentwide Policy, said the cost of the pilot project is still being ironed out with Citibank, the prime contractor. While Citibank is the overall integrator, Visa is handling the credit card and platform portions, and IBM, 3G International, GTE and Sandia National Laboratory are providing technical support.
Four hundred of the employees participating in the smart card pilot project are employees of GSA's Federal Technology Service. The employees are moving into a new Fairfax, Va., building this month that is equipped to handle smart card applications. The remaining 50 employees work at GSA headquarters in Washington.
NEXT STORY: Comings and Goings: OMB to get new deputy