Digital Government

Is IRS dropping the risk assessment ball?

The nation's tax data hasn't been hacked directly, but watchdogs say the IRS made "the wrong call" on risk assessments, which led to data leaking out the front door.

Digital Government

The taxman’s tech troubles

The agency spends $2.5 billion annually on IT across more than 20 major systems, yet it still relies on a central data processing setup that went online in the 1960s to keep its revenue-collecting cogs turning.

Digital Government

Comment flood slams federal website

A sudden burst of interest in copyright law threatened to take down Regulations.gov and, activists worried, keep people's voices from being heard.

Digital Government

State Department's database vulnerabilities are nothing new

The Consular Consolidated Database has endured IT glitches in the past, and a former U.S. official tells FCW that the system's architecture remains vulnerable to hacking.

Digital Government

Making social media monitoring matter

For an agency to be at the top of its social media game, tracking trends is an important part of the strategy.

Digital Government

DOT launches open data push to build National Transit Map

The Department of Transportation is asking local and state transit agencies to share their data in an open format for a national transit map.

Digital Government

Commerce Data Service looking to grow big in 2016

One of government's latest startups has plans to add dozens of people and finish 15 projects this summer.

Digital Government

A tax info redesign by the users, for the users

The IRS is aiming to crowdsource a revamp of its online tax information with a focus on user-centered design.

Digital Government

Are federal web sites too subtle?

Agency websites sometimes offer too many choices, and can be hard to distinguish from private-sector sites, according to public feedback gathered by 18F's design team.

Digital Government

Why one government agency seems less than thrilled about Census modernization

The Census Bureau's ambitious modernization plan aims to save $5 billion, but the Postal Service appears worried about losing revenue from delivering fewer paper questionnaires.

Digital Government

FOIA bill includes governmentwide online portal

Under the Senate-passed FOIA Improvement Act of 2015, OMB would take the lead in creating a one-stop online portal for FOIA requests across the federal government.

Digital Government

Obama warns against 'absolutist' positions on encryption

The White House had said Obama would not weigh in on the Apple case, but he spoke at length on the issue of encryption in the first visit by a sitting president to the South by Southwest festival.

Digital Government

IRS security tool goes down over security concerns

The IP PIN program was taken down, possibly over concerns similar to those that gutted the "Get Transcript" app last year.

Digital Government

How agile principles are driving digital development

USAID is adapting its international development efforts to rapid advances in technology, bandwidth and access.

Digital Government

Obama administration rallies new open data push

The Obama administration opens another front in its long-standing bid to push open data as fuel for private sector innovation.

Digital Government

Verisign gets extension on .gov duties

GSA extended Verisign as the .gov top-level domain registrar for a year while it mulls how to bid out the work.

Digital Government

Feds show off tech for international development

Officials at the "Defense, Development and Diplomacy" summit at the State Department cautioned the audience about the pace of technology development in the government sector.

Digital Government

ONC launches tool for electronic health record research

The HHS unit tasked with advancing health IT is behind and effort to coordinate conversation and research around electronic health record interoperability.

Digital Government

USAJobs update offers tracking to job applicants

OPM released improvements to the federal government's job portal that are aimed at making the application process easier.

Digital Government

USDA preps for the Internet of Tractors

USDA is looking for commercial solutions to an agricultural data problem, as farmers report basically the same data twice in a process prone to human error.