More than two years after Congress passed the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act—the biggest overhaul of Federal IT acquisition in decades—most Federal chief information officers say they still don’t have the authority necessary to manage technology throughout their agencies. […]

The Senate voted to allow Internet service providers to collect the personal data of their customers without permission.

Civil servants who create complex regulations are often their own worst enemy, according to Joe Paiva, chief information officer of the International Trade Administration.

The deadline for Federal agencies to close all of their data centers by 2018 will probably be extended for an unspecified amount of time, according to Dave Powner, director of IT issues at the Government Accountability Office.

The FBI is building a facial recognition database that could potentially contain the face of every American, but it barely clears the accurate return rate requirements.

BlackBerry announced that its AtHoc service has become the first cloud-based crisis communication service to receive a FedRAMP authorization.

The Department of Veterans Affairs has issued a FedRAMP authority to operate for Microsoft’s Azure Cloud, which covers VA’s most sensitive data, Microsoft announced.

Only one Federal agency achieved the highest scores in each of the cybersecurity framework areas in the Federal Information Security Management Act report for fiscal year 2016. The Federal Election Commission, which governs the financing of Federal elections, received top scores for identifying, protecting, detecting, responding, and recovering from cybersecurity incidents.

The last politically appointed agency-level chief information officer will leave his post April 15. Rob Klopp, the CIO of the Social Security Administration, had been asked by the Trump administration to remain in the post temporarily to provide continuity at a critical time for the agency.

Agencies whose websites ranked low in the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation’s study of government websites can improve by moving to the cloud, industry experts say.

Microsoft on Monday announced the general availability of Power BI Pro and HD Insights data visualization tools and a preview of its Cognitive Insights on the Azure Government cloud.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said he plans to introduce legislation that would restrict law enforcement’s ability to search and demand passwords to the phones and online accounts of foreign travelers.

The General Services Administration’s information security practices contain deficiencies in five of eight FISMA program areas, according to an independent evaluation done by KPMG, a professional auditing company.

Though FITARA scorecards provide important insights into IT modernization efforts, the current scorecard format needs improvements to accurately evaluate agency progress, according to agency CIOs.

The latest draft of President Donald Trump’s long-awaited executive order on cybersecurity requires a plan for transitioning all Federal agencies to shared services for email, cloud computing, and cybersecurity, and directs senior officials to study the feasibility of transitioning agencies to one or more consolidated network architectures.

Agency chief information officers realize the need to convert from on-premise data centers to the cloud, but still find it challenging to convince agency heads that it’s a necessary step. David Bray, CIO of the Federal Communications Commission, said Feb. 8 at the Cloud Computing Caucus Advisory Group meeting, “If you are wedded to legacy systems you are trying to turn a battleship very, very slowly.”

Congress will pursue IT modernization legislation just as meticulously as in the last Congress, in large part due to the high retention of active representatives in the last election, Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., said at the Cloud Computing Caucus Advisory Group’s Destination Cloud event.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed the Email Privacy Act, a bill that would amend Title 18 of the United States Code to include privacy protections for electronic communications stored on third-party servers.

The General Services Administration announced that cloud.gov, 18F’s service that enables Federal agencies to host and update websites and Web applications, had obtained a Provisional Authority to Operate from the FedRAMP Joint Authorization Board.

The Federal CIO Council’s State of Federal Information Technology report stated that Federal agencies spent more than $2 billion on cloud computing services in Fiscal Year 2016. Rob Stein, vice president of Public Sector for NetApp, said that amount will increase this year.