LaserCard Corp. announced that the Angolan government has officially approved the design of its new national ID card, triggering productio of the initial supply of secure optical memory cards for the country’s national ID program.

Issuance of cards to Angola’s adult citizens is scheduled to begin in Luanda, the nation’s capital, by this fall. Delivery of the $8.8 million card will begin this quarter and is scheduled to be completed this fiscal year.

The cards will be issued as wallet-size ID credentials to citizens nationwide and will store personal data including personal and biometric identification. The cards are based on the same optical memory technology used in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s “Green Card” program.

Card production follows the build-out of the nationwide fixed and mobile infrastructure required for card issuance. LaserCard completed delivery of the card personalization equipment that forms the core of this system.

LaserCard is a subcontractor to the Angolan government’s prime contractor, DGM-Sistemas of L.D.A. DGM-Sistemas and other team partners have been engaged in the implementation of the national IT infrastructure and criminal registry database to support the personal data capture, card issuance and downstream application processes.

By Salvatore D’Agostino, IDmachines

IDmachines recently has run across a number of situations in which people want to leverage the PIN on a FIPS 201 credential. The idea is to use a PIN on system as a second factor in combination with contactless components of the credential. Multi-factor authentication is a great idea for any access control application. Something you have plus something you know is simply more secure than something you have.

But let’s be clear, it’s something YOU have and something YOU know, not something WE (as is anyone with access to a database or application knows). The PIN on a FIPS 201 credential is something you set and then is locked away. You should never tell anyone and certainly you should never store it in a database for use in another application.

In particular under no circumstance use the PIN that is associated with and provides access to you private keys as a PIN on system for a physical access control application. End of story no further discussion please.

Precise Biometrics, a developer of biometric solutions, has been awarded a contract valued at more than $6.1 million from the U.S. government.

The contract specifies Precise provides immediate delivery to various agencies with hardware and software necessary for the existing infrastructure involving Precise’s Match-On-Card system.

The specific solution is for U.S. security and cyber defense to prevent hostile invasions of government networks carrying crucial or confidential data. U.S. officials say Match-On-Card technology is an integral tool to stop the hacking of government systems.

With new printing upgrades at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, students and staff will now only see their own print jobs at campus printing stations. The new security features will require university students and staff to sign in using their “onyen” and password at Information Technology Services printing stations.

Onyen, an acronym for the “only name you’ll ever need,” is what UNC calls its campus-wide identifier that is used to gain access to various electronic resources on campus.

The new features will also protect students from others using their accounts to pay for print jobs. For example, if a student fails to log out at a print station, no one else will be able to use his account to pay for documents, since only his own print jobs are viewable.

Read more here.

IBM has inked a seven-year deal to provide elements of the UK government’s plans to upgrade to biometric passports, according to a Tech Generation report. The deal is valued at more than $432 million.

IBM will provide a replacement for the UK Border Agency’s Immigration and Asylum Fingerprint System which holds biometrics collected from visa applicants. The contract will also cover running the database that will store the facial images and fingerprints needed to keep the passport in line with international standards.

IBM will manage the project as the prime contractor, Atos Origin will provide systems integration and operations support, while Sagem Securite will supply biometric services and software.

The UK’s electronic passports containing contactless smart card chips with facial images and fingerprints will start to be issued from 2011.

Read more here.