ActivIdentity providing software to UK Policing Improving Agency
07 May, 2010
category: Corporate, Digital ID, Government
ActivIdentity Corp., a provider of strong authentication and credential management, announced that the National Policing Improving Agency (NPIA) in the United Kingdom has procured 250,000 licenses of its ActivIdentity ActivID Card Management System and ActivIdentity ActivClient security software to issue digital credentials to members of the country’s police forces.
The ActivIdentity solution has been selected as a key component of the National Policing Improving Agency Identity and Access Management framework, which Siemens Enterprise Communications owns and operates. The implementation of this solution brings all UK police forces one step closer to achieving a common environment driven by the NPIA’s Information Systems Improvement Strategy.
The ActivIdentity ActivID Card Management System is a solution that allows National Policing Improving Agency and associated police forces to issue and manage digital credentials on smart cards and securely update applications and credentials after the applications and credentials have been issued to end users. The ActivIdentity ActivClient security software will enable all of the country’s police agencies to secure workstations with smart cards while enforcing strong authentication for desktop access, network login, and remote access to the new Central Service infrastructure, focusing on the Police National Database as the first national application.
NPIA’s new Central Police Service infrastructure is part of the agency’s overall Information Systems Improvement Strategy, which strives to transform police information and communications technology; move towards convergence and the use of common, compatible standards and technology throughout the police service; converge police forces’ information systems to a minimum variation; and create a single re-usable national IT infrastructure.
Once in place, this new infrastructure will provide a national Public Key Infrastructure and federated authentication model, which will promote confidentiality, integrity, and authenticity across all UK police forces. Individual police forces may re-use their smart card deployments to deliver equally secure confidentiality, integrity and authenticity services locally or regionally through collaborative working practices encouraged by the Home Office and the Association of Chief Police Officers.