AMAG Technology Supports New U.S. Government Smart Card Guidelines

The U.S. federal government's Physical Access Interagency Interoperability Working Group (PAIIWG), a working group created by the Government Smart Card Interagency Advisory Board (GSC-IAB), recently released version 2.2 of its technical implementation guidance (TIG) for the deployment of smart card enabled physical access control systems (PACS) within all federal facilities. The new TIG expands on the PACS-related directives contained within the previously released Government Smart Card Interoperability Specification (GSC-IS) version 2.1, a document created by the Government Services Administration (GSA) and the National Institutes of Standards and Technology (NIST) that details the rules and guidelines for the use of both contact and contactless smart cards throughout the federal government.

AMAG Technology, a leading developer of cost-efficient, advanced-technology security management systems with over 15,000 installations worldwide, has announced that it applauds the government's efforts and has aligned its product development programs to ensure full compliance with these new instructions.

AMAG Technology has been deeply involved in U.S. government smart card programs dating back to the massive Multi-technology Automated Reader Card (MARC) program in 1995. In September 2003, AMAG helped the U.S. Department of the Interior (DoI) become the first federal agency to deploy a contactless smart card-based national access control system based on the GSC-IS v2.1 specification running on an AMAG Enterprise access control system. AMAG's S731 smart card reader is one of the few physical access control card readers that supports both the contact and contactless specifications mandated in the GSC-IS v2.1 document.

The Technical Implementation Guidance document can be downloaded from http://www.smart.gov/information/TIG_SCEPACS_v2.2.pdf.