FIPS 201

FIPS 201 ( Federal Information Processing Standard Publication 201), Personal Identity Verification (PIV ) of Federal Employees and Contractors, is a standard of the NIST and specifies technical requirements for access control for employees and contractors of the U.S. government. It describes requirements for physical and logical access control. The purpose of this standard is to specify a secure system, with which you can verify the identity of individuals who need access to government buildings or on IT systems of government. FIPS 201 was published in March 2006. A revised version of FIPS 201-2 is available as a draft.

The standard is composed of two parts. The first part describes the minimum requirements for an access control system, as required by the Homeland Security Presidential Directive 12 ( HSPD 12). The second part contains technical specifications to ensure interoperability of different systems.