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Marines to expand use of secure ID card
New system will manage user access rights
By Jason Miller
Executive Editor
FederalNewsRadio
The federal government has focused for the last four years on developing and issuing secure identification cards under the Homeland Security Presidential Directive-12 mandate.
And while many agencies still are in the nascent stage of the program, the Marine Corps hired BearingPoint under a $15.6 million contract Sept. 15 to make their cards do more than just access the network.
Charles Daniels, the systems integration environment manager for the Marine Corps Systems Command, says the system will help the services automatically control access rights and privileges to applications and data.
He says this is a step toward single sign-on capabilities for all software on the Marines’ network.
The Marines will start with the Marine Corps Enterprise Information Technology Services (MCEITS) program, which includes enterprise services such as portals, collaboration and other network-centric services.
“We expect to have our base core capabilities by late spring and grow them to other applications,” Daniels says. “We are taking the requirements from the operation forces and defining the capabilities we need.”
Daniels says the biggest challenge to getting this done is defining the authoritative data sources.
“We have to define what the right data is and make sure we get it from the right place,” he says. “We also have to make sure the data stays up to date and we are doing right checks against this data.”
Daniels adds that the Navy-Marine Corps Intranet (NMCI) does make this process easier because there is on central location for user accounts. But the Marines will have to pull data from other sources as well.
The Marines will receive several benefits from this, Daniels says.
“This technology will reduce the need to memorize 25 different user names and passwords for Marines,” he says. “You can use the Common Access Card one time to get into any information you need.”
Daniels adds that the Marines expect to save money too from using this system.
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On the Web:
FederalNewsRadio – DoD set for August rush
Defense Department – Common Access Card
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