- 1991 The Department of Defense issues the DoD ID card.
- 1995 Federal Security Levels are created in response to Murrah building bombing in Oklahoma City.
- 1997 Navy “Smart Battleship” includes secure networks with smart card.
- 2000 The federal Common Access Card (CAC) is introduced.
- 2003 Executive Office of the President issued OMB M-04-04 E-Authentication Guidance for Federal Agencies.
- 2004 Government Smart Card Handbook is issued by the General Services Administration; Homeland Security Presidential Directive (HSPD) 12 creates one credential for Federal employees and contractors for logical and physical access.
- 2005 National Institute of Standards (NIST) releases the Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS 201) standard and Personal Identity Verification (PIV) guidance;.Security Industry Association Quarterly Technical Update (QTU) briefs the security industry on key topics relating to PIV, digital certificates, and high assurance credential cards.
- 2006 First Personal Identity Verification (PIV) initiatives arer introduced among federal agencies, including the First Responder Authentication Credential (FRAC); Verisign (Symantec), Cybertrust (Verizon), ORC (WidePoint) and others become Shared Service Providers (SSPs) for outsourced FIPS 201-compliant credentials; CertiPath establishes the Aerospace and Defense Industrial Base Bridge,
- 2007 Transportation Worker Identification Credential (TWIC) is introduced.
- 2008 Special Publication 800-116, Guidance on Physical Access Control is released.
- 2009 Federal Identity, Credentialing, and Access Management (FICAM) Roadmap, and the PIV-I baseline are published; Kantara Initiative is established to address common interests across the “identity community” such as Interoperability and Compliance Testing; Identity Assurance; Policy and Legal Issues; Privacy; Ownership and Liability; User Experience and Usability; Cross-Community Coordination and Collaboration; Education and Outreach; Market Research; Use Cases and Requirements; and Tool Development.
- 2010 The first draft of the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC) is released; Personal Identity Verification Interoperability For Non-Federal Issuers (PIV-I) Version 1.1 and the PIV-I Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) documents are issued by the Federal CIO Council.