Let's See Some ID

The Department of Homeland Security plans to add about 200,000 workers during the next few months to a program to develop more reliable identification for government workers. The workers are from maritime, rail, aviation, and ground modes of transportation at 34 sites across the country. The Bush administration by late February wants to create a standard for secure and reliable forms of identification to issue to federal employees and contractors.

The latest phase will go beyond its previous programs by using smart-card technology to provide physical access to secure facilities and logical access to data, says Matt Shannon, Homeland Security strategic account manager for Saflink Corp., a maker of biometric security software working on a prototype for the program.