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GAO U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE
441 G St. N.W.
Washington, DC 20548
March 10, 2015
The Honorable Charles E. Schumer
Chairman
Joint Committee on Printing
United States Senate
The Honorable Shelley Moore Capito
Chairman
The Honorable Brian Schatz
Ranking Member
Subcommittee on Appropriations, Legislative Branch
Committee on Appropriations
United States Senate
The Honorable Tom Graves
Chairman
The Honorable Debbie Wasserman Schultz
Ranking Member
Subcommittee on Appropriations, Legislative Branch
Committee on Appropriations
House of Representatives
Government Publishing Office: Production of Secure Credentials for the Department of
State and U.S. Customs and Border Protection
Federal secure credentials include a variety of documents such as personal identification (ID)
cards that contain enhanced security features to prevent counterfeiting or other illicit tampering.
Such credentials may also have a memory chip with radio frequency identification (RFID) that
can store and transmit information to an external card reader. The Government Publishing
Office (GPO), formerly the Government Printing Office,1 an agency within the legislative branch,
is the federal government's primary centralized resource for gathering, cataloging, producing,
providing, authenticating, and preserving published U.S. government information in all its
forms.2 As such, GPO produces and distributes information products and services for all three
branches of the federal government. In response to increasing demand by federal agencies for
secure credentials that incorporate smart card technology,3 GPO requested, and the Joint
'Pursuant to the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2015, the Government Printing Office has
been redesignated the Government Publishing Office and the title of Public Printer has been changed to Director of
the Government Publishing Office. See Pub. L. No. 113-235, Div. H, § 1301, 128 Stat. 2130 (2014).
2See 44 U.S.C. § 501 (providing, in general and with some exception, that [alll printing, binding, and blank-book work
for Congress, the Executive Office, the Judiciary, other than the Supreme Court of the United States, and every
executive department, independent office and establishment of the Government, shall be done at [GPO]); § 501 note
(providing, among other things, a prohibition on the use of appropriated funds for the procurement of any printing
related to the production of government publications unless by or through GPO).
3According to the Smart Card Alliance, an association that works to stimulate the understanding and use of smart
cards, a smart card is a device that includes an embedded integrated circuit chip that can be either a secure
microcontroller or equivalent intelligence with internal memory or a memory chip alone. The card connects to a reader
GAO-1 5-326R Government Publishing Office
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