The team at CACI International has modified thousands of iPads to ensure they surpass US government security requirements.
To secure the iPad devices, the company physically changed some of the tablets hardware and then made modifications to Apple’s software.
Securing iPad and other mobile devices for government use is a growing business. Among government workers taking advantage of the Federal iPad program are President Barack Obama, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Department of Homeland Security, and the FBI.
Speaking to Bloomberg about the government approved iPad CACI, CEO Dan Allen notes that devices currently photographed with President Obama are “most likely a product that either came from us or came from someone we work with. It’s a neutered iPad … We’re working on how do we effectively brand it.”
The new CACI created iPad devices have had their front and rear-facing cameras removed. Others have had their 3G, 4G LTE , and Wi-Fi connectivity terminated for highly classified area workers.
The new device does show a bluetooth icon at the top of each tablet; however, there appears to be no way to connect via bluetooth.
CACI has also added “strict inventory requirements,” and they added a remote wipe feature that is said to be “destructive” to all data once removed.
Depending on a government worker’s security clearance, the government secured iPad’s from CACI International all have different features that have been disabled.
Are you surprised by the governments shift towards tablet based devices from Apple, or was it an inevitable shift created by consumer demand?
