OMB updates HSPD-12 procurement guidelines
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Agencies have until Aug. 30 to tell the General Services Administration's Federal Acquisition Service if they will need assisted services to comply with Homeland Security Presidential Directive-12.
Agencies have until Aug. 30 to tell the General Services Administration's Federal Acquisition Service if they will need assisted services to comply with Homeland Security Presidential Directive-12.
Agencies would have to sign an interagency agreement with FAS, which became official last April, by Aug. 30 in order to have enough time for GSA to help them buy services that meet the Oct. 27 mandate. For products, agencies have until Sept. 22 to sign an agreement with FAS.
These dates are a part of an updated memo issued today by the Office of Management and Budget, which gives agencies guidance to buy products and services to comply with HSPD-12.
GSA last September issued a memo halting all smart-card implementations and requiring agencies to buy only Federal Information Processing Standard-201-approved products and services. This latest memo is a follow-up to that one.
Many agencies are waiting for products and services to be approved by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and GSA. The memo said 49 vendors have enrolled in GSA's interoperability testing program. Of those 49 contractors, 29 have initiated the application process for one or more product or service for a total of 109 products or services GSA is evaluating. GSA has approved nine products so far, including public-key infrastructure providers, fingerprint capture stations and fingerprint template generators and matchers.
The memo also provides agencies with three vendors who can provide HSPD-12 end-to-end services.
The Federal Acquisition Regulations Council also will be issuing a final rule and proposed rule addressing HSPD-12, the memo said.
The final rule, which is based on an interim rule that came out in January, would require contractors to submit to the same background investigations federal employees must go through under HSPD-12.
The other rule, which will be proposed, would require agencies to acquire only approved products and services.
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