The Senate voted along party lines today to confirm Kiran Ahuja to become the next director of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) for a four-year term. […]
FCC Acting Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said she plans to have commissioners vote at the agency’s July 13 meeting on a report and order to implement the Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Reimbursement Program. The program – worth nearly $1.9 billion – is intended to help network service providers replace equipment in their networks made by China-based Huawei, ZTE, and any other providers that the Federal government may deem as risky to national security. […]
A bevy of bills recently introduced in both the Senate and the House aim to help increase access to telehealth services, and establish a $50 million virtual health pilot program within the Department of Health and Human Services’ Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). […]
The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) awarded the first phase of the 8(a) STARS III Governmentwide Acquisition Contract (GWAC). This fourth-generation $50 billion contract primarily focuses on emerging technologies and performance outside of the continental United States. […]
The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) released the Final Rule for its Connecting Minority Communities (CMC) Pilot Program this week, to provide $268 million to historically Black Colleges or Universities (HBCUs), Tribal Colleges or Universities (TCUs), and minority-serving institutions (MSIs) to expand their broadband. […]
As Federal agencies transition to all-Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) systems, having solid security policies and determining how security teams can monitor the IPv6 transition is essential to fully implementing steps to complete the transition, IT industry officials said on June 16. […]
Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. Census Bureau successfully ramped up its use of automation, internet-driven outreach, and other emerging technology tools to conduct the decennial census, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO). […]
The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) organization is looking to upgrade its IT architecture by consolidating its IT systems into a single architecture on the ServiceNow platform. […]
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee today approved by voice vote the Biden administration’s nominees to lead the General Services Administration (GSA), the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and to take the role of National Cyber Director. […]
As government agencies shape their goals and priorities for the new administration, they continue to target waste, fraud, and abuse. Rob Owens, deputy inspector general for Management and Policy at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), explained this week how HHS is targeting waste, fraud, and abuse by utilizing geospatial analytics and visualization as part of a Geographic Information System (GIS). […]
The Social Security Administration (SSA) has implemented four of the seven open priority recommendations that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) identified in April 2020, including updating systems and establishing a risk management framework. […]
The General Services Administration (GSA) is in search of a vendor to help manage its electronic leasing tool, known as GSA Real Estate Exchange (G-REX), and provide IT services to support the application’s maintenance and updates. […]
Cloud-based analytics capabilities are helping NASA to power its “digital twin” practices of digitally designing aircraft before any testing takes place on physical models of flying craft, […]
The Department of Defense (DoD) has made progress in improving software and cybersecurity associated with its weapons systems, but the programs still struggle to implement and execute modern software development practices, according to a recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report. […]
Rep. Jerry McNerney, D-Calif., introduced a bill that, if passed, would commission a study on blockchain technology and digital currency, and another on how artificial intelligence (AI) can aid the Consumer Product Safety Commission. […]
Major Federal government IT and cybersecurity modernization plans – from the rapid deployment of zero trust architectures and 5G technologies to the adoption of IoT and smart infrastructures – depend upon a scalable, robust and agile network infrastructure as a foundation for such advances. The Federal government has committed to the full transition to IPv6 as its basis for network modernization, and in November 2020, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued a policy that outlined the strategic intent for the government to deliver its information services, operate its networks, and access the services of others using only IPv6. […]
In 2016, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) began replacing its outdated biometric identity management system but needs to fully implement key IT acquisition best practices to fully implement the entire Homeland Advanced Recognition Technology (HART) system by 2021, which is three years behind schedule due to technical challenges. […]
The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), along with the National Science Foundation (NSF) is launching the National AI Research Resource Task Force, which will serve as a Federal advisory committee to provide recommendations for establishing and sustaining the National AI Research Resource. […]
Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Secretary Denis McDonough said he expects some results from a strategic review of VA’s electronic health records (EHR) system that began in March to be delivered in the next couple of weeks. […]
Robin Carnahan, President Biden’s nominee for administrator of the General Services Administration (GSA), sailed through a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee confirmation hearing today while offering commitments to create a more user-friendly GSA and support digital infrastructure investments. […]
Federal and state government chief data officers (CDO) discussed agency strategies and best practices for data governance at a FedInsider digital roundtable event on June 9 against the backdrop of Federal Chief Data Officer Council efforts to establish government-wide best practices for the management, use, protection, and generation of data. […]
As Federal agencies work to implement the Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions (EIS) contract – which offers a governmentwide solution-based vehicle to address Federal agency IT telecommunications and infrastructure requirements – the Department of Labor (DOL) is proving to be among best-in-class agencies at those modernization efforts. […]
The White House today released the first fruits of a February executive order that has Federal agencies looking at ways to improve supply chain security in several key critical infrastructure areas. […]
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has awarded a 12-year $725 million contract to AT&T to modernize the agency’s IP-based data communication platform and drive mission outcomes. […]
Last fall, the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) announced a binding operational directive (BOD) requiring the Federal government to develop and publish vulnerability disclosure policies (VDP). CISA announced today it has chosen vendors for its VDP platform. […]
Cross-agency collaboration – which has been important to the larger Federal IT mission for years, and became even more so during coronavirus pandemic – is due for further acceleration as the next mechanism in how government works together, Federal officials said on June 7. […]
While legislation from 2018 sought to have the Social Security Administration (SSA) enter into agreements with states to share and match SSA and child welfare data, a Government Accountability Office (GAO) survey has found that some state child welfare agencies are identifing challenges to participating in these data exchanges. […]
Digital vaccine credentials can be used to certify that a person has been vaccinated or tested for COVID-19, but those tools come with challenges that can limit the use of the credentials including security and health data privacy concerns, the Federal government’s chief watchdog agency said. […]
The General Services Administration (GSA) has awarded a five-year, $674 million contract to Booz Allen Hamilton to support the growth of the Department of Defense’s (DoD) Advana data analytics platform to improve decision making across the organization. […]
The Department of Labor (DOL) – and numerous state governments that the agency assists – struggled during the coronavirus pandemic to ramp up unemployment insurance (UI) programs to meet sharp increases in demand. Some of the principal culprits, according to DOL’s inspector general (IG), were legacy systems, insufficient staffing resources to manage increased unemployment claims, and unclear and untimely Employment and Training Administration (ETA) guidance. […]