Back in 2004, President George W. Bush issued Homeland Security Presidential Directive 12 (HSPD-12). One of the federal government’s many attempts to tighten security after 9/11, HSPD-12 aimed to eliminate “wide variations in the quality and security of identification used to gain access to secure facilities where there is potential for terrorist attacks” and directed the creation of a standard ID card to be used by federal government employees and contractors for access to both federal buildings and federal computer networks.
The secure ID card initiative has made progress since then, with, according to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), 4.5 million of 5.7 million federal employees and contractors having biometrics and data-encoded HSPD-12-compliant “smart” cards as of December 2010, but those cards are not yet being used to their full technological potential.