The purpose of this Special Publication is to provide appropriate and useful guidelines for assessing the reliability of issuers of Personal Identity Verification (PIV) Cards and Derived PIV Credentials. These issuers store personal information and issue credentials based on Office of Management and Budget (OMB) policies and on the standards published in response to Homeland Security Presidential Directive 12 (HSPD-12) and therefore are the primary target of the assessment and authorization under this guideline. The reliability of an issuer is of utmost importance when one organization (e.g., a federal agency) is required to trust the identity credentials of individuals that were created and issued by another federal agency. This trust will only exist if organizations relying on the credentials issued by a given organization have the necessary level of assurance that the reliability of the issuing organization has been established through a formal authorization process. Keywords Assessment; Authorization; Controls; Derived PIV Credentials; Issuer; personal identity verification; PIV card