Chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security, Representative Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., sent a letter to Acting Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Administrator Peter Gaynor last week to address the sensitive personal data of hurricane and wildfire survivors that was mistakenly shared with contractors. […]

Congress must take action to ensure that consumer data is being adequately protected at consumer reporting agencies (CRAs), witnesses said at Tuesday’s House Committee on Oversight and Reform Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy hearing. […]

The Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee’s Manufacturing, Trade, and Consumer Protection Subcommittee has scheduled a hearing for March 26 at 2:30 p.m. EDT on data privacy issues impacting small businesses and “the unique challenges they face with laws designed for larger companies.” […]

With the new Artificial Intelligence (AI) executive order and Federal data strategy on the horizon, MeriTalk connected with Rob Davies, Executive Vice President of Operations, ViON, to discuss how agencies can prepare their infrastructure to handle demands from AI, IoT, advanced analytics, blockchain, and more. […]

The Department of Labor (DOL) on March 13 announced creation of a Chief Data Officer (CDO) position in accordance with the OPEN Government Data Act, which includes directing the heads of each Federal agency to “designate a nonpolitical appointee employee in the agency as the CDO of the agency.” […]

Officials from various Federal agencies are focusing on data-driven approaches, utilizing blockchain, and business-focused functions to brace for a digital future. […]

Sens. Edward Markey, D-Mass., and Mike Lee, R-Utah, issued a statement on Tuesday urging the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to “pause” activities to spread the use of facial recognition technologies and develop policy that will further inform U.S. citizens about the technology and what happens to the data that it generates. […]

In what it calls a “strategic decision” that will allow its personnel to concentrate on cyber operations and its warfighting mission, the Air Force is trying to get out of the business of providing end-user services, such as device management, help desks, and the underlying network infrastructure. Instead, it is contracting those jobs out to industry as part of a network-as-a-service (NaaS) experiment. […]

House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone, Jr., D-N.J., and Communications and Technology Subcommittee Chairman Mike Doyle, D-Pa., said this week they are concerned that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) may be violating the Federal Records Act (FRA). […]

During her keynote address at Monday’s Center for Strategic and International Studies event, Rep. Suzan DelBene, D-Wash., urged the U.S. government to increase its global engagement when it comes to tech–saying that was the only way to maintain U.S. technological leadership. With that in mind, DelBene offered a series of steps Congress can take to maintain U.S. global leadership. […]

Privacy was the topic du jour on the Hill today. In its first hearing in the new Congress, the House Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Consumer Protection and Commerce heard testimony from privacy rights activists and technology industry groups on how to protect consumer privacy in the era of big data. All witnesses before the Subcommittee agreed that the Federal government needs to enact Federal data privacy legislation, though witnesses disagreed on what exactly the legislation should cover. […]

Deloitte’s Center for Government Insights and the Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation at Georgetown University on Wednesday released the “Chief Data Officer in Government: A CDO Playbook.” […]

Top officials from communications industry trade groups told members of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee today what few, if any, in the hearing room would disagree with:  the United States needs to win the global race to leadership in 5G communications services and technologies. […]

The call last week by the Pentagon’s top tester to temporarily halt deployment of the Department of Defense’s Joint Regional Security Stacks (JRSS) wasn’t exactly out of the blue. The DoD’s independent Director of Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT&E) said the same thing in its annual report last year, while citing some of the same problems, such as staffing shortages, difficulty in integrating disparate commercial technologies, and the lack of mature standard operating processes. […]

The chief data officer role has morphed quickly at Federal agencies, as agencies shift their focus from open data to supporting data-driven strategies, said two Federal CDOs during Veritas’ Public Sector Vision Day event on Thursday. […]

Federal IT leaders discussed challenges within their agencies of overcoming divergent cultural views to data sharing during Veritas’ Public Sector Vision Day on Thursday. […]

Rep. Bob Latta, R-Ohio, ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s subcommittee on Communications and Technology, delivered a wide-ranging survey of tech issues in the panel’s gunsights for this year and beyond during a keynote speech at the State of the Net 2019 conference today, and generally came down on the lighter side of the regulatory spectrum. […]

As Federal agency leaders look to modernize networks and provide better citizen services, they need to have a “Citizen First” mentality, rather than “Cloud First” or “Cloud Smart,” Claire Bailey, director of Federal, State and Local Mainframe Solutions at Compuware, told MeriTalk. […]

In a letter on Friday to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, Democratic leadership on the House Energy and Commerce Committee called for an emergency briefing from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to explain why the Commission “has yet to end wireless carriers’ unauthorized disclosure of consumers’ real-time location data and what actions the FCC has taken to address this issue to date.” […]

Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and Mark Warner, D-Va., along with FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel voiced strong opposition Tuesday and Wednesday to the reported sale of user location data by telecom service providers including Sprint, T-Mobile, and AT&T. […]

Federal agency demand for CDM (Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation) security technologies has plenty of room for continued growth based on a GAO report released in late December, which showed mixed progress on agency deployment figures for the first half of 2018. The report underlined the importance of CDM progress and chided Federal agencies for being slow to implement the government’s approach to network security. […]

The Federal government will close on Wednesday for a national day of mourning declared by President Trump following the death of former President George H.W. Bush, whose funeral will be held that day at the Washington National Cathedral. […]

How do you get 1,000 folks out of bed in Las Vegas before 7:00 a.m.? […]

In a letter to Walter Copan, undersecretary of Commerce for Standards and Technology and director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., called on NIST to create a framework for the development and use of facial recognition technologies. […]

The United Kingdom’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) said it fined ride-sharing provider Uber 385,000 pounds (U.S. $490,000) for failing to take adequate steps to protect the personal data of its customers during a cyberattack suffered by the company in 2016. […]

The private sector is the prime driver for Congress to take up data privacy legislation in 2019, industry panelists said Thursday at an event organized by Bloomberg Government. […]

With a new session of Congress–and a power shift in the House–looming in January, big tech companies are looking toward 2019 and possible new privacy legislation that will alter the shape of their business models. […]

A new report released today from One Identity found that Federal agencies lack basic elements of cyber hygiene. The study, conducted by Dimensional Research and sponsored by identity and access management (IAM) solutions provider One Identity found that “while agency leaders recognize IAM’s importance, the majority of agencies have yet to fully adopt recommended guidelines into their cybersecurity program and some even feel their current approach distracts from agency missions.” […]

Yahoo, which is now owned by Verizon, has agreed to pay $50 million in damages, plus about $35 million in legal fees, under a proposed civil settlement covering data breaches in 2013 and 2014 that impacted three billion Yahoo accounts, according to numerous press reports.  […]

The General Services Administration’s Office of Inspector General said in a report issued Oct. 19 that it wants GSA’s IT Office (GSA IT) to provide a revised corrective action plan to improve the agency’s policies for responding to breaches of personally identifiable information (PII). […]