HSPD-12 ushered in a culture change for the executive branch of the U.S. government and paved the way for other identity initiatives but it’s not all a rosy portrait. A decade in, use cases for the credential are few and the electronic functionality of the smart card is limited.

The province of British Columbia is issuing its BC Care Card to provide secure online access to a host of government services, health care systems and more. The contactless card also serves as the driver license. The system is taking an innovative approach to authentication using an EMV app on the card — not for payment but rather for secure access to services.

As a part of the planning for British Columbia’s citizen ID, the BC Care Card, government officials worked actively with citizen groups to get input and refine strategies and approaches. The BC process can serve as a model for stakeholder engagement in identity systems as they proactively sought insight to help build a privacy-enabling solution with functions that citizens suggested they would want to use.

Employees and consumers aren’t always excited to use high-assurance security technologies. One of the biggest obstacles is usability and vendors are starting to recognize this, according to Gartner’s “Magic Quadrant for User Authentication” report. Author Ant Allan notes that bring-your-own-device demands are forcing vendors to change their products and services in response. Users want sign-in to be as easy as using any other app on consumer phones. A swipe here, a PIN there is about all most are willing to do.

Safenet, Gemalto, EMC, CA Technologies, Vasco Data Security and Technology Nexus are Gartner’s choices for top user authentication technology companies in its recent “Magic Quadrant for User Authentication” report. The report’s main conclusions: Perhaps 50 vendors of the 200 or so in the market have credible offerings, and the top six above account for most of the market by customer and end-user numbers.

AIRSHOP enables retailers to launch their own self-branded mobile wallets for fast and advanced ordering, payment, loyalty, geo-location services and couponing. It has been deployed for retailers including KFC, Carrefour City, G20, Dia and many more.

Identity-as-a-service enables smaller enterprises the ability to use smart cards, PKI and other advanced identity technologies.