Sens. Chris Coons, D-Del., and Mike Lee, R-Utah, introduced a bill that would require Federal law enforcement to obtain a court-ordered warrant before using facial recognition to surveil the public on Nov. 14. […]
House Inspector General (IG) Michael Ptasienski recommended “centralizing procurement for commodity items and standardizing office technology and support” at a Committee on the Modernization of Congress hearing on Nov. 15. […]
A U.S. Veterans Affairs (VA) Office of Inspector General (OIG) review found unrelated third-party names and social security numbers in a random sampling of Privacy Act responses completed by Records Management Center (RMC) staff. […]
Amazon Web Services plans to protest the Department of Defense’s (DoD’s) decision to award the contract for its Joint Enterprise Defense Initiative (JEDI) cloud program to Microsoft, according to a statement from a company spokesperson. […]
Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I., a co-chair of the House Cybersecurity Caucus and one of the few widely acknowledged experts in Congress on cybersecurity, said on Nov. 14 that a lack of data “baselines” on security issues continues to hamper efforts in Congress – and the nation as a whole – to improve security. […]
Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, suggested on Nov. 14 that Congress and the Trump administration could get more done to improve Federal cybersecurity if more agencies critical to that effort were headed by Senate-confirmed secretaries, rather than acting secretaries. […]
Kevin Cox, program manager for the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) program, today discussed the program’s progress in generating AWARE (Agency-Wide Adaptive Risk Enumeration) algorithm scores for Federal agencies to track relative security status, and about how the program plans to refine the scoring process in the future. […]
The Federal government’s new approach to shared services, outlined in the Sharing Quality Services cross-agency priority (CAP) goal, is moving from planning stages to implementation, while emphasizing customer focus and placing an emphasis on a marketplace model, said Federal CIO Suzette Kent. […]
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released draft versions of its strategies on cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) today, setting the stage for the agency’s adoption of the emerging technologies. […]
The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) released an update to the National Strategic Computing Initiative today. […]
In the agency’s latest effort to protect sensitive information, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) partnered with the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) to develop biometric and behavior-based access credentials for employees. […]
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., sent a Nov. 7 letter to U.S. Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy expressing concern about the use of China-owned social media platforms including TikTok by Army personnel in their personal and official capacities. […]
MITRE Engenuity announced on Nov. 12 the launch of its Center for Threat-Informed Defense, which describes itself as a “collaboration with industry to improve cyber defense at scale through collaborative research and development.” […]
As part of its Centers of Excellence (CoE) initiative, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is looking to replace the application it uses for annuity claims and move from legacy software to a new web app, according to two requests for information released November 12. […]
As the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) continues working toward a paperless future, the agency has already completed online filing systems for several documents and, and is touting successes with its online account system. […]
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is a target for cybercriminals, but the agency is failing to adequately protect itself, according to a Nov. 13 report by the NASA Office of the Inspector General (OIG). […]
Amid new mandates for government data use and cloud migration, data management is top of mind for agency leaders. But cost, infrastructure modernization and threat prevention remain a challenge. MeriTalk spoke with David Bailey, senior director of U.S. Public Sector Technical Sales at Veritas, about how agencies can plan their first steps toward a cohesive, sustainable data strategy, as well as the factors behind today’s unprecedented data growth. […]
The Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee approved by voice vote today the Harvesting American Cybersecurity Knowledge through Education Act (HACKED Act) (S 2775), which aims to boost the Federal cybersecurity workforce with new guidelines for agencies, clearer career paths for the workforce, and improved coordination between agencies. […]
A bill introduced by Rep. Mikie Sherrill, D-N.J., on Nov. 8 would establish a new Center of Excellence (CoE) and fund elections systems research at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the National Science Foundation (NSF). […]
The State Department is looking to develop IT professionals through the Foreign Affairs Information Technology (FAIT) Fellowship. […]
Rep. Ben Ray Luján, D-N.M., introduced a bill in the House on Nov. 8 that would direct the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to enact regulations requiring public inspection files to be available online in a machine-readable format. […]
Election security will remain an operational priority for the Cybersecurity Infrastructure and Security Agency (CISA) “for the foreseeable future,” a CISA official said at a Nov. 12 event. […]
A Cybersecurity Infrastructure and Security Agency (CISA) interagency workgroup – focused at least in part on supply chain and control systems security issues – aims to have an executive committee meeting early next year to discuss cybersecurity challenges in both the public and private sectors. […]
Dorris Consulting is seeking nominations for its 2019 Service to the Citizen Awards. […]
A new study from consulting firm Deloitte finds that the lion’s share of artificial intelligence (AI) technology use cases being pursued by public sector organizations involve quality control, cybersecurity, and workforce management applications. […]
The Brennan Center for Justice argued in a Nov. 12 report that the Federal government needs to hold election technology vendors to higher cybersecurity standards in order to receive Federal certification. To that end, the Center offered up a new framework for oversight. […]
Officials from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Department of Defense (DoD) previewed their agencies’ latest efforts on supply chain security guidelines at the CyberCon 2019 conference today. […]
The results of the annual Federal Employee Viewpoints Survey (FEVS) show a continued discontent with the Federal government’s career advancement processes, and a negative impact on agencies from the partial Federal government shutdown that spanned 35 days and ended Jan. 25. […]
Microsoft said on Nov. 11 that it will “honor” throughout its U.S. operations the “core protections” contained in the California Consumer Privacy Act that is set to take effect in January 2020. […]
In a Nov. 7 letter, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., urged Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and National Security Agency (NSA) Director Gen. Paul Nakasone to conduct a cybersecurity audit of mobile voting app Voatz to “determine whether it can reliably protect the votes of U.S. servicemembers against foreign hacking.” […]