Eric Le Saint from ActivIdentity joins GlobalPlatform as Systems Committee Chair

Eric Le Saint currently holds the position of director of security, IP and standards engagement for ActivIdentity, a leader in strong authentication and credential management. At ActivIdentity, Eric Le Saint defines product security policies and approves product releases according to these policies. He is actively involved in the standardisation of US government ID cards with NIST / ISO and the US Department of Defense. He also serves as editor of the ANSI Generic Identity Command Set (GICS).

The aim of the GlobalPlatform Systems Committee is to define open specifications to support the back-office infrastructure of any smart card program, as well as to develop and maintain specific functionality to support GlobalPlatform smart cards and their applications. The technology created allows for convergence between mobile solutions, contact- and contactless solutions, physical and logical access, and applications for finance, m-commerce, government or enterprise ID, healthcare and transportation.

As Systems Committee Chair, Mr. Le Saints role will be to drive the system committees work to meet the requirements of various markets by liaising with GlobalPlatform’s Government and Mobile Task Forces, and progressing joint initiatives with relevant industry bodies. Within the next twelve months, he will also beef up GlobalPlatform’s efforts to develop a messaging configuration for trusted service managers and mobile network operators which supports over-the-air data exchange, and will also progress a messaging configuration for the identity community which streamlines the issuance of identity documents.

Eric has been involved in GlobalPlatform for several years and led the organizations identity cards working group where he contributed significantly to GlobalPlatforms Messaging Configuration for the mass personalization of U.S. Personal Identity Verification cards said Kevin Gillick, executive director at GlobalPlatform. We believe Eric brings a combination of technology expertise, passion for achievement and the ability to meet the needs of our members that will serve our systems committee well.

Almost 449 million GlobalPlatform-based smart cards were deployed as of October 2009. According to estimates, 2.2 billion mid range USIM / SIM cards around the world use GlobalPlatform card technology to enable over-the-air (OTA) application downloads for 3G and GSM mobile networks.

This year, GlobalPlatform celebrates its 10th anniversary.