Members of the Open Government Federal Advisory Committee (OG FAC) and other top Federal officials said on Wednesday that technology should be leveraged in developing the sixth U.S. Open Government National Action Plan (NAP 6). […]
The United States Postal Service (USPS) did not do enough to ensure that some of its main IT contracts were well-managed and remained competitive, bringing spending under the contract into question, according to a report from the USPS Office of Inspector General. […]
Federal agencies have made significant progress on open data, but the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has not issued implementation guidance or performance reports under the OPEN Government Data Act, according to a report released today by the Government Accountability Office (GAO). […]
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. […]
Federal government Chief Data Officers (CDOs) are bullish on the ability of a new government data law to spur IT modernization through improved data access, but they also see plenty of work that needs to be done before that vision becomes a reality. […]
As technology and public policy continue to meet at a crossroads in American society, Bruce Schneier, fellow and lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, proposed that the United States needs more public-interest technologists at the RSA Conference yesterday. […]
The move by government organizations to public cloud infrastructure is often motivated by a desire to provide better services to citizens, but an academic piece warns about the need to maintain public access to open data in the cloud. […]
Freedom House’s annual report on internet freedom, entitled “Freedom on the Net” and released today, finds that global internet freedom is on the decline for the eighth consecutive year. […]
On Tuesday, President Trump released his management agenda, which focused heavily on his IT modernization goals. Top of mind for the administration? Improving the customer experience, helping agencies better deliver on their missions, and reducing costs to the taxpayer. […]
The General Services Administration’s (GSA) Emerging Citizen Technology Office (ECTO) is working with a network of partners from more than 300 Federal, state, and local government entities to help evaluate, test, and implement IT modernization initiatives with emerging technologies. […]
The FDIC is not accurately disclosing agency expenditures and spending information in compliance with the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act of 2014 (DATA Act), according to a recent audit issued by the FDIC Office of Inspector General (OIG). […]
While states are still in the process of deciding whether they are opting in or opting out of FirstNet, AT&T and FirstNet are moving ahead with public safety and innovation. The two organizations have launched an application developer program focused on first responders. […]
NIC this month launched the first digital personal government assistant, Gov2Go, at the annual NASCIO conference. Gov2Go, which is hosted on Microsoft’s Azure public cloud, centralizes services citizens need at the local, state, and Federal level. While the platform was already in use in a few states, the recent launch marks the nationwide rollout. […]
President Donald Trump issued a memorandum on Oct. 5 that requires Federal agencies to set up an information sharing network to correspond about threats to national security. […]
The Federal government is finding new ways to make Federal spending data more transparent to citizens by launching the Treasury Department’s Data Lab, and considering a bill that would add open data requirements to Federal grants. […]
Esri has deployed the CrowdRescue Puerto Rico Infrastructure Map, which displays crowdsourced reports about damage from Hurricane Maria affecting the U.S. territory. The map enables a visualization of closed roads, collapsed bridges, flooding, mudslides, areas where communication is unavailable, areas that don’t have power, areas without drinking water, and areas with downed power lines. […]
Direct Relief, a humanitarian organization that delivers medical supplies to crisis areas, uses Esri mapping technology and data to send resources to Houston during Hurricane Harvey. Direct Relief uses data layers from the Census, the National Weather Service, and other open data platforms to target where certain medical supplies such as inhalers and other medications will be needed. […]
Some states refused to turn over voter data to the White House on June 30, saying that the data requested contains sensitive information and could be used for political purposes. President Donald Trump signed an executive order in May that established the Commission on Election Integrity, which investigates instances of potential voter fraud. The commission asked the states to turn over all publicly available voter data. […]
GSA’s 18F provides positive competition to consultants and contractors, according to Booz Allen Hamilton vice president Bryce Pippert. The proof: the success of DATA Act implementation and the beta website of usaspending.gov. […]
The transparent reporting of spending data through Digital Accountability and Transparency Act (DATA) requirements will go a long way to increasing public trust in the government, according to legislators and agency officials who spoke at the DATA Summit on June 29. […]
Bernard Barton, chief information officer of the Library of Congress, is challenging American coders to bring the centuries-old information stored by the library into the digital era. The challenge, which will launch later this year, asks coders to submit ideas for modernizing the public’s access to the Library of Congress’ data. […]
A group of prominent technology companies wrote a letter to the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, asking Congress to reform the National Security Agency’s surveillance powers. The technology companies include Adobe, Amazon, Cisco, Google, and Microsoft. […]
The Government Accountability Office issued a report that said that 26 agency inspectors general reported that their agencies faced challenges in meeting the deadline for DATA Act required information. […]
Now that the government’s Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board is down to one member, the intelligence community’s individual privacy officers have a bigger responsibility to ensure transparency from their agencies. […]
The Center for Data Innovation, along with 82 other civil society organizations, signed a letter on April 5 urging Congress to act on the Open, Permanent, Electronic, and Necessary Government Data Act, which would establish a policy requiring Federal agencies to ensure that their data is accessible to the public. […]
The U.S. Forest Service’s Visitor Map 2.0, an open data platform informing people what services national forests have to offer, received 22,000 unique page views during the month of February. […]
Reports that White House staffers have resorted to using an encrypted messaging app that erases messages as soon as they’re read has raised significant concerns that the practice may violate the Presidential Records Act. […]
Gregory Reams, leader of the U.S. Forest Service’s Forest Inventory and Analysis program, said that the open data sets his office makes available are unlikely to suffer the same fate as the animal welfare documents that disappeared from the Department of Agriculture website. “It’s been supported for 80 years and used by a wide constituency,” Reams said at Esri’s FedGIS conference. […]
Open data supporters have expressed trepidation over a new House bill that states Federal agencies will no longer be able to use geospatial information to create open databases on racial disparities and affordable housing. […]
Can he really do that? The Federal records management regulations prohibit President Donald Trump from making climate change data disappear, despite the order to take down part of the website. […]