Packaging

Giesecke & Devrient Smart Card Solution for Personal Identity Verification Satisfies U.S. Government Standard

Thursday 16. April 2009 - Giesecke & Devrient (G&D) is presenting its new StarSign cards at the RSA Conference in San Francisco (stand 1745) - one of the world's most important conferences for information security. The cards conform to the FIPS 201 standard.

They are the first smart card solutions presented by G&D that satisfy the strict security requirements of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and are thus approved for authenticating employees and contractors for access to U.S. government facilities and information systems. Another important product is G&D’s StarSign Mobility Token, which provides secure mobile access to company data from any computer. The StarSign Mobility Token ID1 is a mobile, highly secure storage medium for data and applications that supports smart card-based authentication. G&D is also presenting joint solutions with partners such as ActivIdentity, Crealogix, and Giritech.

StarSign FIPS 201 cards come in two different versions (80KB EEPROM and 144KB EEPROM). A wide variety of security features – from laser engraving and guilloches to other optical devices such as a holographic coating – protect the card body against counterfeiting. These smart cards have two communications interfaces – one for contact and one for contactless applications. Both reading mechanisms offer the same high level of security and provide strong authentication.

StarSign FIPS 201 cards are in G&D’s Sm@rtCafé Expert family, which consists of products based on the standardized JavaCard operating system. Their storage capacity is among the largest found among FIPS 201-compatible cards – over 100KB. The newly launched StarSign FIPS 201-compatible smart card solutions are a valuable addition to G&D’s range of intelligent identification cards.

The Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 201 was issued by the U.S. government and specifies the minimum personal identity verification (PIV) requirements for government employees and contractors. FIPS 201 is fast becoming an important standard for institutions and companies, particularly in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. FIPS 201 significantly tightens security, reduces identity fraud, and boosts government efficiency at the same time. The standard was developed to satisfy the requirements of Homeland Security Presidential Directive 12 for the IT sector.