The National Institute of Standards and Technology explains derived credentials:

“Smart card-based PIV Cards cannot be readily used with most mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets, but Derived PIV Credentials (DPCs) can be used instead to PIV-enable these devices and provide multi-factor authentication for mobile device users.”

NIST SP 800-157 specifies the use of cryptographic tokens on mobile devices in which DPCs and their corresponding private keys may be used.

[source: http://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/ir/2016/NIST.IR.8055.pdf ]

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