Digital Government

Farmers and allies seek looser drone rules from Congress

After hearing testimony from the farm data industry, lawmakers might push the FAA to relax line-of-sight rules for drone operators.

Digital Government

Lawmakers look to GAO for answers on IT acquisition

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee asked GAO to scrutinize acquisition practices, the U.S. Digital Service's work priorities and the implementation of FITARA's CIO authorities.

Cybersecurity

High-impact federal systems are vulnerable and under constant assault

According to a new report, federal agencies that store critical data are not fully prepared for the ongoing uptick in attacks on IT systems.

Cybersecurity

DOD bullish on bug bounties

"Hack the Pentagon" turned up almost 140 vulnerabilities in a demonstration of how DOD can capitalize on crowdsourcing.

Modernization

The three-month FedRAMP approach

The FedRAMP team is bullish on getting cloud service providers through the approval process in a single quarter, thanks to its new pre-assessment phase.

Digital Government

State Department eyes electronic health records

The State Department plans to deploy a new global electronic health record system to support U.S. diplomatic missions worldwide.

Digital Government

IRS goes XML with tax-exempt forms

The tax agency is making tax-exempt filings available in machine-readable format.

Modernization

One year after outage, MSPB shakes up tech shop

The Merit Systems Protection Board is reassigning its long-serving CIO in the wake of a systems outage that continues to ripple through the agency.

Cybersecurity

Why should feds care about blockchain?

Federal standards setters can't predict how blockchain might serve government ends, but secure voting, health records and identity management are possible applications.

Digital Government

White House, Senate at odds over Census funding

The administration is concerned that a Senate appropriations bill starves the Census Bureau of $100 million needed to complete the 2020 Census design.

Modernization

$3 billion worth of IT is about to kick the bucket

Federal CIO Tony Scott is again warning that the government faces a crisis of outmoded IT.

Modernization

Social Security looks to scrap 30 years of code

The SSA CIO is hoping a new funding vehicle will allow his to scrap his entire existing code base and re-write a better system – if overseers will only trust him.

Cybersecurity

DOD IT is killing CACs

Pentagon CIO Terry Halvorsen plans to eliminate Common Access Cards from IT systems within two years, while moving to a mix of better authentication methods.

Digital Government

FAA joining the chief data officer movement

The airspace agency is hiring for its newly created data management leadership role.

Digital Government

IRS crowdsources the future look for tax accounts online

After its first-ever crowdsourcing push, the IRS came away with four winning designs to guide its future taxpayer dashboard work.

Digital Government

Lawmakers see promise in 18F and USDS, despite a few warning signs

The digital services teams could do more to align with FITARA, but overseers displayed as much optimism as scrutiny following a GAO report on the teams' work.

Digital Government

Watchdog warns on 18F's finances

Despite having plenty of satisfied customers, the government startup is losing millions of dollars each year.

Digital Government

Census says tech overhaul is on schedule

Watchdogs are worried the Census Bureau won't be able to successfully juggle 2020 plans and an ambitious tech overhaul.

Modernization

It's time to trash your legacy system and rewrite from scratch

At least one federal tech chief has become convinced that instead of prolonged, incremental modernization of legacy IT, agencies should just rewrite their entire systems in a modern environment.

Cybersecurity

U.S.-EU data deal won't end cross-border data uncertainty

A final endorsement from the European Commission is likely this summer, but despite American clarifications, Europeans are likely to keep challenging U.S. data practices.