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VA Not Meeting Mandated Smart Card Deadlines

October 14, 2010 - It seems almost commonplace at this point for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to be behind in their deadlines. Although the VA's enormous backlog of disability claims makes headlines, the VA is also behind their deadline for issuing smart cards. Two years ago the federal government mandated a deadline for federal agencies to comply with an IT security directive; they were to give employees and contractors identity credentials.

Issuing smart cards to employees and contractors was part of Homeland Security Presidential Directive 12. The smart cards are supposed to serve to protect government networks and facilities. To date, the VA has only issued approximately 9% of smart cards to its labor force. Although the VA is not alone in missing this deadline, they are one of the farthest behind. Of the major agencies required to use the smart cards, they are dead last.

According to a recent audit, the VA fell behind because of their refusal to put issuing the smart cards on the top of their priority list. Once they got behind, the VA failed to allocate the proper tools and resources to the office tasked with issuing the cards. The VA very likely will fail to meet the October 2011 deadline established by the VA's Chief of Staff as to do so, they would have to issue 6 times the amount of smart cards they are currently. To conform to the 2017 directive's deadline, the VA will need to issue approximately 741,000 smart cards.

The audit also found the VA hasn't run a significant amount of testing on their cards or their system. If the cards don't work, it won't matter how many are issued. Some current card holders haven't even gone through the required background check. Hopefully the VA will do what it needs to do to make sure it starts meeting deadlines.