What is ePACS and What are the Benefits?

HSPD-12 established that all departments and agencies shall require the use of the LincPass to gain access to federally controlled facilities. The Departmental Management (DM) OHSEC identified the need to develop and implement ePACS to centralize, and provide a means to distribute, identity data related to LincPass credentialed individuals to all USDA Physical Access Control Systems (PACS).

• Provide a single source of verification for employee and contractor credentials
• Maintain a system that is less susceptible to identity fraud, tampering, counterfeiting and terrorist exploitation
• Provide a system that can rapidly authenticate credentials electronically
• Ensure that only providers whose reliability has been established by an official accreditation process can issue cards