Provisioning users to multiple agencies

• US 8,117,650 B2
• Filed: 10/04/2007
• Issued: 02/14/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 10/04/2007
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: RPX Corporation
• Original Assignee: Novell Intellectual Property Holdings, Inc.
• Inventors: Mashayekhi, Cameron, Ford, Karl E., Kiester, W. Scott
• Primary Examiner(s): BROWN, CHRISTOPHER J
• Application Number:
  US11/906,941
• Publication Number:
  US 20090094161A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,594 Days
• Field of Search: 726/5, 726/9, 713/186
• US Class Current: 726/9
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/3821 Electronic credentials

Abstract

Apparatus and methods are described for providing employee cards to employees, such as PIV cards to federal employees, including provisioning the employees to a more than one agency (and more than one card) without requiring multiple instances of enrolling and adjudicating the employee. Representatively, a sponsor enters information about the employee into a computer-displayed form (e.g., web-based). Biometric identity information is collected for the employee, but if such has already begun or is complete for at least a first agency, the collected information is used for a second agency without redundant collection. In the event an adjudication level of the first agency is at least as stringent as it is for the second agency, the employee is eligible to receive an employee card for the second agency, in addition to an employee card for the first agency.

Claims

1. In a computing system environment, a method of providing employee cards to an employee requiring one employee card per one of many employer'"'"'s agencies, comprising:

sponsoring the employee for each of the many employer'"'"'s agencies, the sponsoring including providing a computer-displayed form for a sponsor to enter information about the employee;

determining whether biometric enrolling for the employee has already begun or been completed for at least one agency of the many employer'"'"'s agencies and, if so, using the biometric enrolling for another agency of the many employer'"'"'s agencies, the determining including searching various databases of the many employer'"'"'s agencies for collected biometric information of the employee and determining whether the collected biometric information is valid; and

based on the biometric enrolling and determining, adjudicating the employee for receipt of the employee card for the at least one agency of the many employer'"'"'s agencies, wherein if the adjudicating is successful and the at least one agency has an adjudication level at least as great as the adjudication level for the another agency, concurrently authorizing the employee for receipt of a second employee card for the another agency without repeating the biometric enrolling and adjudicating, thereby provisioning the employee to the another agency without requiring multiple instances of the enrolling and the adjudicating.

2. The method of claim 1, further including activating the employee card and the second employee card, the employee card and the second employee card being physically one or more than one card.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the activating further includes generating computing keys and loading computing certificates relative to the employee card and the second employee card.

4. The method of claim 1, further including electronically logging and storing varieties of the sponsoring, the enrolling or the adjudicating.

5. The method of claim 1, further including providing executable code indicating whether the biometric enrolling for the employee has already begun or been completed for the at least one agency of the many employer'"'"'s agencies.

6. The method of claim 1, further including initiating the biometric enrolling after the sponsoring by coordinating electronic communications on various computing devices after receiving the computer-displayed form from the sponsor.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the determining whether the biometric information is valid includes determining whether the biometric enrolling includes expired biometric data of the employee.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein if the at least one agency does not have the adjudication level at least as great as the adjudication level for the another agency, adjudicating the employee before receipt of the second employee card for the another agency.

9. In a computing system environment, a method of providing PIV cards to a federal employee requiring one PIV card per one of many federal agencies, comprising:

sponsoring the federal employee for a first agency of the many federal agencies, the sponsoring including providing a computer-displayed form for entering information about the federal employee;

enrolling the federal employee for the first agency, including collecting biometric identity information of the federal employee and electronically storing at least some of the collected biometric identity information;

based on the enrolling, adjudicating the federal employee for receipt of a PIV card for the first agency;

activating the PIV card if the adjudicating is successful;

sponsoring the federal employee for a second agency of the many federal agencies, including providing another computer-displayed form;

using the enrolling of the federal employee for the first agency as enrolling for the second agency, including searching various databases of the many agencies for the electronically stored at least some of the collected biometric identity information including determining whether the at least some of the collected biometric identity information is valid;

determining whether the first agency has an adjudication level at least as great as the adjudication level for the second agency; and

if so, activating a second PIV card for the federal employee for the second agency without repeating the enrolling and the adjudicating, thereby provisioning the federal employee to the second agency without requiring multiple instances of the enrolling and the adjudicating.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the activating the PIV card and the second PIV card further includes activating to different physical or logical access systems, the PIV card and the second PIV card being physically one or the same card.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the activating further includes generating computing keys and loading computing certificates relative to the PIV card and the second PIV card.

12. The method of claim 9, further including providing executable code indicating locations where the collected biometric identity information is stored.

13. The method of claim 9, further including initiating the enrolling after the sponsoring by coordinating electronic communications on various computing devices after receiving the computer-displayed form from the sponsor.

14. The method of claim 9, wherein the determining whether the collected biometric identity information is valid includes determining whether the collected biometric identity information has an associated expiration date.

15. The method of claim 9, wherein if the first agency does not have the adjudication level at least as great as the adjudication level for the second agency, adjudicating the federal employee before activation of the second PIV card.

16. A computer program product available as a download or on a non-transitory computer readable medium having executable instructions for installation on one or more computing devices in a computing environment for providing employee cards to an employee requiring one employee card per one of many employer'"'"'s agencies, comprising:

a first component for providing a computer-displayed form for a sponsor to enter information about the employee for each of the many employer'"'"'s agencies;

a second component for electronically arranging and storing collected biometric identity information of the employee;

a third component for electronically searching various databases of the many employer'"'"'s agencies and determining whether the collected biometric identity information for the employee has been completed for at least one agency of the many employer'"'"'s agencies and, if so, for using the collected biometric identity information for another agency of the many employer'"'"'s agencies; and

a fourth component for determining whether the at least one agency has an adjudication level at least as great as the adjudication level for the another agency and, if so, for authorizing the employee for receipt of the employee card for the another agency without repeating a step of enrolling and a step of adjudicating, thereby provisioning the employee to the another agency without requiring multiple instances of the enrolling and the adjudicating.

17. The computer program product of claim 16, further including a fifth component for activating the employee card to physical or logical access systems.

18. The computer program product of claim 16, further including a fifth component for generating computing keys and loading computing certificates relative to the employee card.

19. The computer program product of claim 16, further including a fifth component for initiating biometric enrolling after receiving the computer-displayed form from the sponsor by coordinating electronic communications on various computing devices.

20. The computer program product of claim 16, further including a fifth component for determining whether the collected biometric identity information has biometric data exceeding an expiration date.