The agency quickly pulled the plug on its innovative service when critics pointed out how easy it might be to obtain someone else's earnings history. ACES is supposed to make such services possible. Pilot Programs Agencies are gearing up to use the ACES services, but so far most are engaged in limited PKI pilot programs. One major exception is the Defense Department, which has made a major commitment to going paperless by 2003. To reach that goal, the department will provide PKI services via smart cards to 4 million or so civilian and military employees and contractors by the end of 2002.
Security is their business, and it's no wonder that they're good at it.
The Air Force has launched a program to issue certificates to 700,000 people, and the Navy has a comparable program under way. The DoD infrastructure will support both classified and unclassified transactions. Agencies' internal security policies must conform to these levels if they wish to use the bridge authority. Other agencies in the vanguard, according to Guida, are the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, NASA, the Energy Department and the Federal Aviation Administration. FDIC and the FAA aim to use PKI to Web-enable some of their regulatory activities, he says, while the others are focusing primarily on internal operations, such as human resources and procurement.