Virginia-based EDS, a government technology contractor, has earned an almost-$12 million contact to assist the Department of Veterans Affairs with its PIV card solutions.
The contract is designed to assist the VA in the issuance of personal identity verification (PIV) cards that need to be distributed to all VA employees and contractors.
The contract is a "follow-on"; EDS had previously worked with the department for other identity projects, and has worked with a number of other federal agencies on their HSPD-12 card programs. The PIV card program arose out of Homeland Security Presidential Directive 12, which was specified by President George Bush as a way to converge and ensure
As part of the contract, EDS will be providing training to the VA official who will be issuing the cards; the firm will also be creating PIV deployment teams for the department, and handling back-end needs like card warehousing, staging and shipping for this massive roll-out.
The PIV/HSPD-12 card program recently passed an Oct. 27 deadline which required completion of FBI-based background screening for all federal workers who will be enrolled in the PIV program, which sometimes also goes by the name FIPS 201, referring to a technical bulletin specifying the technology for the cards and credentials.
