Introduction to USAccess
Protecting and keeping government assets secure such as facilities, computers, or information systems, are a fundamental responsibility of government employees. To ensure consistent implementation across the federal government, Homeland Security Presidential Directive12 (HSPD-12) was enacted. It provides for a new standardized federal identity credential that is designed to enhance security, reduce identity fraud, and protect the personal privacy of those issued government identification.
GSA has developed a complete end-to-end service to issue fully compliant identity credentials for government employees and contractors. By participating in the USAccess program, your agency benefits from an operational and robust infrastructure, centralized program and billing management, technical expertise, and economies of scale for credential management. Furthermore, USAccess provides a key foundational component to help your agency unite its logical and physical access control system implementation strategies.
A Comprehensive Set of Services
System Infrastructure: Provides a secure, standards-based enterprise identity management capability with various PIV related components implemented with high availability and disaster recovery capabilities.
Credential Production, Issuance, Activation and Management:
- Automatically batches and processes PIV credential requests, produces the credential in a central facility, and ships to designated agency locations.
- Once the applicant receives the credential, his/her identity is confirmed using biometric verification followed by credential “personalization” with the applicant’s biographic information, fingerprint templates, and PIN and generates the suite of digital certificates.
- Credential management activities, such as suspensions, reprints or revocations, may be performed by authorized role holders via an intuitive user interface.
- Agencies using Light Activation stations provide applicants and credential holders with more convenient locations to easily activate their credential or perform maintenance activities such as certificate updates.
Role Holder Administration and Management: Within the USAccess system, a Role Administrator assigns designated personnel separate and distinct privileges to Sponsor, Enroll, Adjudicate, and Activate PIV Credentials. Individuals will receive special training developed specifically to address the key functions of the role.
Reporting: Generate various system reports to track the progress on credentialing applicants or shipments of credentials. Additionally, agencies receive detailed monthly invoice reports.
Public Key Infrastructure (PKI): Credential provided with four digital certificates (credential authentication, identity, e-mail signing, and e-mail encryption).