FIPS (Federal Information Processing Standard) 140-2 is a cryptography standard that non-military U.S. federal agencies, as well as government contractors and service providers, must comply with in order to work with any federal government entities that collect, store, transfer, share and disseminate sensitive but unclassified (SBU) information. The FIPS 140-2 security standard is recognized by the U.S. and Canadian governments, as well as by the European Union.