The Universal Badge

A universal badge is an elusive commodity. It is what everyone wants, but it is difficult to develop or obtain. To check the validity of this statement, all you need to do is examine the huge effort, time spent and expenses that are still going on within our own government as they migrate to a universal badge (Federal ID card) for physical and logical access control.

The goal is a badge that can be used across various governmental organizations. There have been a large number of security manufacturers that have participated in the government universal badge standard (FIPS 201) program. This standard will provide a universal government badge and will ensure that the person who has the badge is actually who they say that they are. (The process to control the badge stock and authenticate the badge holder is an important aspect of FIPS 201.)

To incorporate this government universal badge across many government agencies has been a huge challenge. Part of the challenge has been that many different physical access control systems are already in place access the country in government facilities. Another challenge is the tremendous number of government people that must receive the new badges — including government employees, government contractors, military personnel, etc. There has been resistance by government organizations and individuals about complying. Some have been cost-related some have been privacy issues with the required background checks. The Department of Homeland Security is not expected to meet the credentialing deadline until 2010.

The new government standard will ultimately have a major impact on the security industry as a whole, but just accepting the standard does not address all the issues necessary to reach the universal badge goal.
Corporate America is also looking for a universal badge to use across the enterprise. The goal normally is for universal identification, physical and logical access. Due to mergers and acquisitions, the universal badge can be difficult to develop and incorporate across a major company even for physical access, much less for both physical and logical access.