The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Customs and Border Protection (CBP) operation has pulled its support for a mandatory biometric entry-exit system that would require facial recognition scans for all travelers – including U.S. citizens – entering or departing the United States, according to a Dec. 5 press release from Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass. […]
Officials from the General Services Administration (GSA), and Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Veterans Affairs (VA) talked this week about some of the obstacles they’ve encountered, and are overcoming, in wrestling with Big Data sets. […]
The Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee is poised to take action next week on a range of tech-related legislation including bills dealing with making available spectrum for 5G wireless services, and further action to rein in robocalling. […]
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) announced today the launch of its National Artificial Intelligence (AI) Institute (NAII) to coordinate veteran-specific AI initiatives. […]
The House Oversight and Reform Committee’s Government Operations Subcommittee has scheduled a hearing for Dec. 11 at 2:00 p.m. to discuss results of the subcommittee’s upcoming release of the ninth edition of its FITARA (Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act) Scorecard. […]
The Social Security Administration (SSA) has rolled out its modernized Disability Case Processing System (DCPS) to 31 states and territories, but the system is only being used to process seven percent of their workloads due to gaps in functionality, according to a review by SSA’s inspector general. […]
Sens. Cory Booker, D-N.J., and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., called on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), and five major healthcare companies to “provide more information on how they are addressing bias in algorithms used in many healthcare systems.” […]
New research shows that email is still a weak link in U.S. election infrastructure, with only five percent of the nation’s largest counties protecting election officials from impersonation attempts. […]
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai proposed Dec. 4 to create a $9 billion fund to support the deployment of 5G wireless services in rural portions of the U.S. The proposal would require approval from a majority of the full five-member commission, with a vote likely sometime in 2020. […]
Access to valuable data and the transition to cloud infrastructure could help the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) access life-saving procedures for patients across the country, according to a presentation by HHS CIO José Arrieta at FCW Workshop: Health IT on Dec. 4. […]
The U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) is looking to leverage the cloud for its intelligence unit as the demands of cyber combat and maritime activities are pushing the unit to embrace technology, according to a request for information released November 22. Responses are due by December 20. […]
The Census Bureau’s personnel and hiring systems are not ready to scale to meet the peak demand needed for the 2020 Decennial Census, according to a management alert from the Department of Commerce’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG). […]
U.S. Election Assistance Commissioner Thomas Hicks said on Dec. 3 that election security in the U.S. is “light years” ahead of where it was in 2016, but also emphasized there’s plenty more to do to ensure good security for the 2020 election cycle. […]
Machine-learning (ML), artificial intelligence (AI), and blockchain technologies are crucial ingredients necessary to creating the next generation of healthcare data security and functionality, a Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) official said today at an event presented by Fortinet. […]
For Federal agencies, fostering innovation involves understanding when to be bold and where to put forth resources by communicating with other agencies as to what their needs are, while allowing for open communication channels within one’s own agency, said agency leaders today. […]
The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) recommended improvements to OPM’s security management, logical access, and configuration management in an audit of the agency’s financial records released on Nov. 18. […]
The Department of Justice (DoJ) updated its Policy on the Use of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS), placing an emphasis on cybersecurity and mitigating supply chain risks that may come from drones. […]
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is seeking feedback on program objectives for implementation of a new cybersecurity-focused personnel system. […]
The General Service Administration’s (GSA’s) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) released its semiannual report to Congress on November 27, recommending $79 million in cost savings for the time period. […]
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) lacked the IT systems necessary to accurately track migrant families separated under the agency’s Zero Tolerance Policy, according to a DHS Office of the Inspector General (OIG) report released on Nov. 25. […]
The U.S. Department of Education is investigating whether the University of Maryland and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) properly reported contracts from foreign governments and IT-related companies. […]
The Department of Commerce released a draft regulation for a case-by-case process of banning Americans from buying IT equipment from companies controlled by foreign interests, a power granted by May’s executive order on supply chain security. […]
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) released a draft version of Binding Operational Directive (BOD) 20-01, which would require Federal agencies to establish a vulnerability disclosure policy for internet-connected systems. […]
As the temperature drops and the leaves follow suit, the time of year has approached to reflect on the many things for which we are thankful. […]
The Congressional Budget Office estimated in a Nov. 21 report that the DOTGOV Online Trust in Government Act would cost very little to implement. […]
Beth Angerman, principal deputy associate administrator of the General Services Administration’s (GSA) Office of Governmentwide Policy, will leave GSA on Dec. 6, MeriTalk has learned. […]
The Department of Defense (DoD) has increased its use of Other Transactional Authorities (OTAs) to bring prototypes into the department, according to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released November 22. […]
The General Services Administration (GSA) is issuing an advance notice for schedule contractors for a Mass Modification (Mass Mod) that will update their contracts to the parameters of the new consolidated Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) for product, services, and solutions. […]
The Department of Energy’s (DoE) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) reported numerous cybersecurity weaknesses at DoE and issued 54 recommendations to the agency throughout Fiscal Year 2019, according to a report released on Nov. 19. […]
The National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCoE) and National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) are seeking comments for a new project to improve supply chain security. […]